Researchers said that the balance between benefit and harm from the drugs was uncertainDoctors should prescribe fewer antidepressants and for a shorter time, experts said, after a review found no strong evidence that the drugs were effective. The benefits of the medication were uncertain but many patients had side effects and withdrawal symptoms, which could be severe, researchers said. SponsoredTrial data had failed to show a “clinically relevant” difference between the drugs and a placebo, according to the findings, published online in the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin. An estimated 7.8 million people in England — roughly one adult in six — were given at least one prescription for antidepressants in 2019-20. Rates were 50 per cent higher in women and the number of youngsters aged between 12 and 17 who were prescribed the drugs more than doubled

Source: The Times December 21, 2021 21:41 UTC