Critical thinking stop point 34.1

Possible answer to: Why do you think the prescribing of antidepressants has increased so markedly since the turn of the century?

The answer to this question is likely to reflect a complex mixture of social and health effects. Undoubtedly, rates of mental distress have risen in line with society becoming more unequal and with the detrimental impact of austerity policies on quality of life. However, the huge increase in prescribing antidepressants cannot be wholly explained by an actual increase in treatable mental disorder. There is also a tendency to over-prescribe because of an interaction between medicalisation and patient expectations. Medicalisation (or here, psychiatrisation) is a social process where doctors categorise ever-increasing aspects of human experience as worthy of medical treatment – in this sense, sadness, or extreme forms such as bereavement become pathologised as depression. Arguably, over time people have begun to expect, or even demand, treatment or medicine when they consult with medical professionals such as GPs. There is also a triumph of marketing, where drugs such as Prozac, for instance, become well known and popular for both prescribers and potential patients.