Antidepressants – not just for depression any more

Millions of people take antidepressants. However, a study from McGill University in Montreal, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reported that, out of the 100,000 prescriptions from nearly 10 years of medical records reviewed, nearly 50 percent were for a disorder other than depression. Insomnia, anxiety, attention-deficit disorders (ADD), pain, and bulimia are all being treated now with antidepressant medication.

The researchers suspected that antidepressants were being used for other reasons, but it really had not been studied. Study author Jenna Wong, a McGill University Ph.D. candidate, told CBS News, “We wanted to see exactly why antidepressants were being prescribed, how often, and for what indications.”

The investigation included all antidepressants with the exception of monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI), an older drug that is rarely prescribed. The team discovered that only 55 percent of all prescriptions for antidepressant medications were actually prescribed for depression.

The finding has raised concern among the study authors for several reasons. Wong says that data for prescribing patterns of antidepressants may be skewed, since the drugs are being commonly prescribed for other reasons. Wong also argues that there is no scientific evidence that the drugs are effective for some of those uses. Some are being prescribed off-label because data exists that they may work for other medical problems. However, Wong says that in cases such as ADD and migraines the science is not solid that antidepressants are an effective treatment. “It raises the question of why they are prescribing them,” she said.

Although the researchers did not study why doctors are prescribing depression drugs for other conditions, Wong says some of the conditions have no exact treatment, and antidepressants could be a last-resort measure. “The patients may be desperate for something to treat their ailments.”

Another factor is that scientists still do not really understand why antidepressants work for depression. It is still unclear how the drugs work to relieve symptoms of depression. Researchers on the new study suggest that the trend of antidepressant prescriptions for non-depression diagnoses should be explored more fully, to understand the reasons why patients are being given the drugs.

Not everyone finds the study results worrisome. Dr. Norman Sussman, psychiatrist at the Treatment Resistant Depression Program at NYU Langone Medical Center, says the findings “validate the fact that primary care doctors are savvy at utilizing these drugs effectively for management of non-depressive disorders.”