Anxiety disorders have soared since credit crunch

[Gem]

(Emboldening is mine)

 

Anxiety disorders have soared since credit crunch

 

The number of people being treated for “anxiety disorders” has more than quadrupled in four years, according to official figures.

 

By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent and James Clayton

 

7:30AM GMT 01 Jan 2012 The Telegraph

 

Hospital statistics show the number of outpatient appointments for those with such a diagnosis has soared since the onset of the credit crunch.

 

Experts said some of the rise could be explained by an expansion in counselling services, and an increase in mental health problems triggered by financial uncertainties and job stresses.

 

But others said doctors had become too quick to “medicalise” feelings of distress – and to label people as suffering from psychiatric disorders when their anxiety was a normal response to pressures they were facing.

 

The statistics, from the NHS Information Centre, show that the number of outpatient appointments for patients diagnosed with anxiety disorders and panic attacks rose from 3,754 to 17,470 between 2006/2007 and 2010/11.

 

Over the same period, cases admitted to hospital rose by one third, with 8,756 in-patients with such a diagnosis.

 

Psychiatrists said such cases were “the tip of the iceberg” as most people who visit family doctors because of signs of anxiety are likely to be given medication, such as Prozac and Valium, rather than a hospital appointment to see a counsellor or get specialist help.

 

Prescriptions of the tranquilliser Valium have risen by 13 per cent in the last four years despite widespread medical concerns about the risk of long-term addiction. Over the same period, prescribing of antidepressants – now commonly used to treat anxiety disorders as well as depression – rose by 38 per cent, with almost 43 million prescriptions issued last year.

 

Dr Joanna Moncrieff, a consultant psychiatrist at North East London NHS foundation trust, said too many people were being given a medical label and prescribed drugs, when their feelings and anxieties were normal.

 

She said: “The pharmaceutical industry is always looking for new markets, and anxiety disorder is increasingly the diagnosis given to people who are distressed and upset. GPs don’t have time to talk to patients about why they are really unhappy; it is easier to treat situations as a standard disorder.”

Dr Moncrieff, a senior lecturer at University College London, said people were more likely to suffer from stress and anxiety when they had money or job worries, but that treating such cases as medical disorders did little long-term good.

 

Research has estimated that between 1.5 per cent and 3.6 per cent of the UK population – between 1 million and 2.2 million people – suffer symptoms which meet the medical definition of an anxiety disorder.

 

But Dr Blake Stobie, a consultant clinical psychologist from Maudsley Hospital’s centre for anxiety disorders and trauma said .... a pledge to improve access to “talking therapies” under the last Government, and improved awareness of such conditions by the general public meant more sufferers were getting help, while economic pressures were likely to have increased the numbers with such disorders.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8986320/Anxiety-disorders-have-soared-since-credit-crunch.html

Edited January 4, 2012 by Altostrata
added link, edited to conform to fair use

[cinephile]

Prescriptions of the tranquilliser Valium have risen by 13 per cent in the last four years despite widespread medical concerns about the risk of long-term addiction. Over the same period, prescribing of antidepressants – now commonly used to treat anxiety disorders as well as depression – rose by 38 per cent, with almost 43 million prescriptions issued last year.

I'm going the opposite way, thank you. Today I get my prescription for my penultimate dose of my hated antidepressant, Lexapro. Hopefully by March I will be MED FREE for the first time in 14 (!) years!

 

But I digress...

 

Yes, this article is one for the "no duh" file, but that's what makes it so disturbing. It's common sense that people get anxious/depressed during a bad economy and it's also common sense that it is insane to throw pills at people who are having a normal reaction to a painful situation. But as we all know on this site, common sense has been out the window in psychiatry and medicine in general for decades, as the above stats attest.

 

This article does, however, confirm my worst fear that between the wretched economy, the ramshackle assemblage of pseudoscience and corruption that is psychiatry, and the seemingly endless wars and the PTSD-soaked veterans it produces, an increasingly larger segment of Americans may be lost to psychiatric drug damage. Yes, I know the article is based in England, but the concept is the same since us Americans have been so good at exporting our "model of care" to the rest of the goddamn world. *Cleanup on aisle everywhere please.

 

The cycle goes something like this:

 

Bad economy --> American/British citizen loses job --> Can't find new job --> Bills and fears pile up --> Citizen goes to psychiatrist or GP --> Citizen gets ridiculous DSM label and walks out of a 50-minute-hour appointment with a fistful of prescriptions. This is the "standard of care" because the health care system is beyond bankrupt and largely beholden to pharma companies. --> Medications bring numbing of emotions and bizarre new symptoms (even diabetes if put on an antipsychotic) which prompt more "treatment" (read: pills) --> Citizen is now on four different meds (including one for diabetes and high blood pressure) and knows deep down none of the psych meds are helping them get any better. --> Psychiatrist insists they are "disabled" by their diagnosis when really it's the meds disabling them --> Citizen's heart sinks like lead under the weight of this "disabled" diagnosis and feels they are beyond help. After all, if the best medical treatment money can buy doesn't help, what can? --> Citizen gets severely depressed over this sense of helplessness and pulls away from their family --> In desperation, citizen quits all meds cold turkey and suffers enormous rebound anxiety/depression far worse than what they originally had. --> Citizen gets suicidal and commits suicide --> Citizen is now officially a statistic that KOL psychiatrists cite as reason that "antidepressants save lives" because if that citizen had stayed on their meds, they wouldn't have committed suicide when, in fact, it was the acute withdrawal and the sick model of care that did them in.

 

Am I getting warm here?

[Whatever]

You are spot on.

 

But, sometimes the citizen kills his family before killing himself. Which is gleefully reported by the voyueristic Media who is also complicit in this. The traditional Media just loves to scare people and will exaggerate facts to do so. And of course many in the traditional Media promote psychiatry. I remember in the early 1990's Prozac was reported in every Media outlet as a new miracle drug. Prozac probably made the cover of Time magazine.

 

Am I getting warmer?

[Gem]

I agree Cinephile, extremely disturbing.

 

It was great for me though, just to see these words in print and to have someone in this profession/the health service admit it.

 

This is what happened to me when I was very young (although I wasn’t suffering financially, I had good reason to be experiencing mild anxiety) and no one has ever really said “your feelings were normal.”

 

I later realised that my feelings were very normal but it was good to hear someone else say it.