Psychiatric Medications Just as Effective as Medications for Other Illnesses
The popular media has sometimes scrutinized research on psychiatric medications, suggesting that they are not as effective as pharmaceutical companies would have us believe. Researchers in Germany recently performed a meta-analysis of research on psychiatric medications and found that the effect sizes for psychiatric drugs were comparable to effect sizes of other types of drugs. (Effect sizes communicate the size of the change that a drug brings about in patients.) The study was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
From the abstract:
Any comparison of different outcomes in different diseases can only serve the purpose of a qualitative perspective. The increment of improvement by drug over placebo must be viewed in the context of the disease’s seriousness, suffering induced, natural course, duration, outcomes, adverse events and societal values.
