psychiatrists Prescribing Drugs More Often Than psychotherapy
August 5th, 2008 | by admin |
A new study finds that more patients who visit a psychiatrist are being prescribed powerful antidepressants as opposed to sessions of psychotherapy.
According to researchers, this trend has come about due to the vast improvement of psychiatric drugs when it comes to treating patients, as well as financial reimbursement rates for doctors which increase generally with the shorter the patient visit.
“Psychiatrists get more for three, 15-minute medication management visits than for one 45 minute psychotherapy visit,” said Dr. Ramin Mojtabai of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
The study found that from 1996 and 1997 to 2004, the percentage of patients receiving psychotherapy fell from more than 44% to more than 28 percent.
When a person is prescribed powerful antidepressant drugs alone, they miss out on the benefits of psychotherapy which can include sessions dealing with behavior modification and in depth group therapy sessions.
The study can be found in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
