Another study about kids and teens on ADs
I’m just mentioning that this Associated Press article exists: Benefits trump risks for children taking antidepressants: study. I don’t remember reading about it before.
The authors of a new comprehensive analysis of antidepressants for children and teenagers say the benefits of treatment trump the small risk of increasing some patients’ chances of having suicidal thoughts and behaviours.The risk they found is lower than the one the U.S. Food and Drug Administration identified in 2004, the year the agency warned the public about the drugs’ risks for children.
After the warning, U.S. youth suicides increased and some mental health experts said reluctance to try antidepressants might be to blame.
The new analysis includes data from seven studies that were not part of the FDA analysis…
The abstract of the actual journal article is here, but I don’t think I can read the whole thing for free and don’t really feel like commenting on the study results without having read it.
Anyway, more from the AP article:
“The medications are safe and effective and should be considered as an important part of treatment,” said study co-author Dr. David Brent of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “The benefits seem favourable compared to the small risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviour.”
Effective, when only Prozac worked better than placebo in depressed children under twelve, and none of the other antidepressants in the studies did? When overall, 61 per cent of depressed kids and teens in the studies improved on antidepressants and 50 per cent on placebo? (The data are better for OCD and other anxiety disorders, which I think we already knew, but I’m less personally interested in anxiety disorders.) I know that research-wise, you can define this as “effective,” but as a patient, it’s not good enough for me. So I at least appreciate that the article mentions the need for careful monitoring of the effects that antidepressants have on children and teens taking them:
Dr. John March, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center, welcomed the study as “the most comprehensive analysis of the data yet put together.”He said the suicidal behaviour risk, although lower than that found by the FDA, demands that doctors and families watch for warning signs…
If I thought antidepressants were completely evil, I wouldn’t be taking them. I’ve taken them since I was a teenager. I have found them beneficial at times. I’m finding Zoloft beneficial now. But I think that even if this study is accurate and antidepressants will cause suicidality in only one out of 101 kids who take them (and I’m not saying it is accurate; I haven’t even read the thing), that’s still a cause for concern. And so do the parents of kids who are suicidal or dead because of antidepressants.
Is it wrong for me to be amused that one of the co-authors of the study has the same name as the incompetent boss from The Office? Probably, but hey, if it’s wrong, I don’t want to be right. No offense meant to Dr. Brent, I swear.