A study of 50,000 people over the age of six that was published in the August issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry reports that 27,000 Americans were taking antidepressants according to the latest available data when the study was written compared with just over 13 million in 1996. Many patients were taking the drug for reasons other than depression such as back pain and the percentage of patients having psychotherapy fell from 31.5 percent to less than 20 percent. The prescriptions were written by doctors other than psychiatrists in 80 percent of cases and lead to the drugs being the top-selling class of drugs in the US in 2005. For the study, data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys which was sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality was analyzed by the researchers. The agency provides national estimates in the US about healthcare use and costs. The research team found that the rate of antidepressant treatment in 1996 was 5.84 compared with 10.12 in 2005.
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