There is much debate in the field about whether antidepressant medications work. Some studies show that they work brilliantly (these are often conducted by the drug companies themselves) while others show they hardly work at all. The confusion is not helped by attention grabbing headlines like the one on the cover of Newsweek in February 2010 which boldly proclaimed:” Antidepressants Don’t Work”.
So what are we to believe?
Well, first off we need to make sure that we don’t uncritically accept everything just because it starts with “the research shows..” or “the study suggested…”. There are many ways that raw date can be tweaked so that a result becomes significant. And don’t forget that a lot is often at stake for the people conducting the research; it may be that approval for a new drug hinges on a positive result or that a positive outcome is needed for the researchers to be able to write it up and submit it to a journal and researchers need to publish papers in order to get grants so that they can keep conduction research.
We also have to be wary of the way the media report scientific research. I agree with John Preston who writes: When complex research results are oversimplified in the media, readers may misinterpret the findings, and some people who might otherwise be helped may not seek treatment. In the case of depression this is especially unfortunate, given that the World Health Organization predicts that by 2020 depression will be the second leading cause of reduced life expectancy…”
But enough already, you may be thinking, can you just get to the point? Do antidepressant medication work or not?
Short answer: they work sometimes.
Unfortunately we have currently no real way of predicting who may benefit. Generally the research has shown that severely depressed people respond better to medication than moderately or mildly depressed people. Some research has suggested that people on average try between four and six different kinds of antidepressants until they find the one that help them. That’s a lot of different medications to try at a time when you’re feeling awful but the problem is that your doctor has no real way of knowing which particular drug may suit you – our understanding of the brain is just not advanced enough. In other words, your doctor is to a large extend shooting blindly and it’s a question of persevering until you find the one that works for you.
Antidepressant medication can be a helpful adjunct to therapy (therapy works a lot faster if someone is sleeping and in general not in a complete fog) but medication is not a quick fix for many of the problems we face as human beings and they will (unfortunately) not magically make you happy.