Are too many people diagnosed as 'depressed?'
August 17, 2007Are too many people now diagnosed as having depression? Two experts give their views in this week’s BMJ.
Professor Gordon Parker, a psychiatrist from Australia says the current threshold for what is considered to be ‘clinical depression’ is too low. He fears it could lead to a diagnosis of depression becoming less credible.
It is, he says, normal to be depressed and points to his own cohort study which followed 242 teachers. Fifteen years into the study, 79% of respondents had already met the symptom and duration criteria for major, minor or sub-syndromal depression.
He blames the over-diagnosis of clinical depression on a change in its categorisation, introduced in 1980. This saw the condition split into ‘major’ and ‘minor’ disorders. He says the simplicity and gravitas of ‘major depression’ gave it cachet with clinicians while its descriptive profile set a low threshold.
Criterion A required a person to be in a ‘dysphoric mood’ for two weeks which included feeling “down in the dumps”. Criterion B involved some level of appetite change, sleep disturbance, drop in libido and fatigue. This model was then extended to include what he describes as a seeming subliminal condition “sub-syndromal depression.”
He argues this categorisation means we have been reduced to the absurd. He says we risk medicalising normal human distress and viewing any expression of depression as necessary of treatment. He says:
“Depression will remain a non-specific ‘catch all’ diagnosis until common sense prevails.”
On the other side of the debate Professor Ian Hickie argues that if increased diagnosis and treatment has actually led to demonstrable benefits and is cost effective, then it is not yet being over diagnosed.
He says increased diagnosis and treatment has led to a reduction in suicides and increased productivity in the population. Furthermore the stigma of being ‘depressed’ has been reduced and the old demeaning labels of ‘stress’ and ‘nervous breakdown’ have been abandoned.
He says concerns about the number of new drug treatments on the market are unhelpful, arguing that new drugs to treat depression have reduced the prescribing of older, more dangerous sedatives and says that the consequences, such as suicide, of not being diagnosed or receiving treatment are rarely emphasised.
Audits carried out in the UK, Australia and New Zealand do not support the notion that the condition is over diagnosed, far from it, he says. Instead he points to the diagnosis rate of people with major depression and says this needs to be improved in which case rates of diagnosis must continue to rise.
Source: British Medical Journal
-
Blood test accurately distinguishes depressed patients from healthy controls
Feb 01, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
1
-
Cancer studies warn over NHS cost-cutting
Jan 16, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Study links brain activity to delusion-like experience
Jan 10, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Debate over who needs a thyroid check in pregnancy
Jan 02, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Panels recommend gearing back on prostate-cancer screenings, cancer
Dec 28, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (33) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (4) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (2) |
0
-
Classical and Quantum Mechanics via Lie algebras
Apr 15, 2011
- More from Physics Forums - Independent Research
More news stories
Starve a virus, feed a cure? Findings show how some cells protect themselves against HIV
A protein that protects some of our immune cells from the most common and virulent form of HIV works by starving the virus of the molecular building blocks that it needs to replicate, according to research published online ...
9 hours ago |
5 / 5 (2) |
0
|
Overeating may double risk of memory loss
New research suggests that consuming between 2,100 and 6,000 calories per day may double the risk of memory loss, or mild cognitive impairment (MCI), among people age 70 and older. The study was released today and will be ...
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
6 hours ago |
5 / 5 (2) |
0
|
Injured boomers beware: Know when to see doctor
(AP) -- It happened to nurse Jane Byron years after an in-line skating fall, business owner Haralee Weintraub while doing "men's" push-ups, and avid cyclist Gene Wilberg while lifting a heavy box.
11 hours ago |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
Declining health-care productivity in England: Who says so?
Reports that the National Health Service in England has been declining in productivity in the last decade appear to have been accepted as fact. However, a Viewpoint published Online First by The Lancet disputes this. The Vi ...
4 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
FDA-approved drug rapidly clears amyloid from the brain, reverses Alzheimer's symptoms in mice
Neuroscientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have made a dramatic breakthrough in their efforts to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. The researchers' findings, published in the journal Science, show t ...
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Feb 09, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (58) |
17
|
Scientists discover molecular secrets of 2,000-year-old Chinese herbal remedy
For roughly two thousand years, Chinese herbalists have treated Malaria using a root extract, commonly known as Chang Shan, from a type of hydrangea that grows in Tibet and Nepal. More recent studies suggest that halofuginone, ...
New method to examine batteries -- MRI from the inside
There is an ever-increasing need for advanced batteries for portable electronics, such as phones, cameras, and music players, but also to power electric vehicles and to facilitate the distribution and storage of energy derived ...
Google might launch Drive for cloud storage soon
(PhysOrg.com) -- Google's next big move, according to the Wall Street Journal, is a cloud storage service called Drive. Hardly first to the plate, Google is simply catching up to introducing its cloud reposi ...
A mitosis mystery solved: How chromosomes align perfectly in a dividing cell
Although the process of mitotic cell division has been studied intensely for more than 50 years, Whitehead Institute researchers have only now solved the mystery of how cells correctly align their chromosomes during symmetric ...
Lab study raises questions over nano-particle impact
Tests involving chickens have raised questions about the impact on health from engineered nano-particles, the ultra-fine grains commonly used in drugs and processed foods, scientists said on Sunday.
Researchers find extensive RNA editing in human transcriptome
In a new study published online in Nature Biotechnology, researchers from BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, reported the evidence of extensive RNA editing in a human cell line by analysis of RNA-seq data, demons ...