The Daily Mail Good Health section is planning to run another article on the widespread problem of drug dependency involving prescription medicines such as opioids, gabapentinoids, benzodiazepines, Z-drugs and antidepressants. The article will examine the scale of the problem and the amount spent on inappropriate prescribing. To help to tell the story and illustrate the […]
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Guest blog: Really depressed people need antidepressants! Do they?
Martin Plöderl, PhD Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Salzburg, Austria Despite decades of research and more than 100,000 patients in clinical trials, it is still debated if the efficacy of antidepressants is clinically meaningful and if prescriptions are justified, given the small benefits and the harms (Jakobsen et al., 2019; Munkholm et al., 2019). Nonetheless, there is […]
Prof Peter Kinderman: Should ECT be judged by the standards of homeopathy?
This blog was originally published on 7th September 2020 on the Psychology Today website as: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-turbulent-minds/202009/should-ect-be-judged-the-standards-homeopathy —o— Extraordinarily, we now live in a world in which the best evidence [https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/treatments-and-wellbeing/ect] that the Royal College of Psychiatrists has been able to muster for the real-world effectiveness of ECT exactly parallels the claims for homeopathy. ECT is defended […]
Update: APPG for Prescribed Drug Dependence
The Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry, secretariat of the APPG for Prescribed Drug Dependence until the end of the last parliament, wanted to provide a short update on the recent activities of the APPG. Following the publication of the PHE Prescribed Medicines Review in September last year, the APPG worked hard to secure a commitment from the […]
Guest blog: NICE depression guideline – cautious optimism?
NICE depression guideline: cautious optimism? Susan McPherson, University of Essex This commentary is a revised and updated version of a Rapid Response letter to the BMJ in September 2019 posted prior to NICE’s decision letter of December 2019: https://www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l2356/rr-0 In a joint stakeholder position statement concerning the NICE 2018 draft depression guideline, six methodological issues were […]