Biological Approach: Drug Therapy Evaluation

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  • DRUG THERAPY EVALUATION
    • effectiveness
      • symptoms not cause
        • Often, drugs are used to treat symptoms and are a short-term solution, not as a cure for the cause of the symptoms
          • The underlying condition and cause of the symptoms is left untreated
            • Could lead to 'revolving door syndrome', where a patient is left going back and forth to their doctor as the disorder is never treated, just the symptoms are
      • side effects
        • Different drugs have different side effects
          • EG, SSRIs are often associated with headaches, nausea, and insomnia
          • Tricyclic antidepressants are associated with more severe side effects, such as hallucinations and irregular heartbeat, so are likely to be used only in cases were SSRIs were not effective
          • Some side effects could cause a patient to not choose to take drugs
      • comparison with other treatments
        • Drugs are a lot quicker to administrate and often start to work a lot quicker than other therepies
        • Drug therapy is a relatively cheap treatment for the patient in comparison to other treatments such as psychotherepy
        • Patients may become overly dependant on the drugs
        • Drug therapy will often have to be used along with other therapies to treat not only the symptoms, but the underlying cause aswell
      • Drugs vs placebos
        • Randomised control trials use placebos to compare against the drugs to see their effectivness
        • Many trials have been conducted to see how drugs compare to placebos, showing drugs are more effective in the short term
          • In a trial with SSRIs, the drugs reduced symptoms of OCD more effectively than placebos
        • Most studies only cover short-term effects of the drugs, so there is little data on how effective they are in the long term
    • ethical issues
      • Patient information
        • Fully informed, valid consent needs to be given by participants/patients
          • A patient with a mental disorder that needs to be treated with drugs may not be in the best mental position to understand and receive all the necessary information needed for them to be able to give valid consent
          • Medical professionals may withhold some information about treatments or could exaggerate benefits of the treatments, meaning the patient would have a biased view of it and their consent may not be fully informed and valid
      • Use of placebos
        • Patients should not be given a treatment known to be inferior
          • If an effective treatment already exists, then they should be used as the control instead of a placebo
            • Substituting a placebo for an effective treatment does not satisfy this duty as patients are exposed to an inferior treatment

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