A Sociological Exploration of Antidepressants
Copyright Azure Ides-Grey 2016
Cover image taken from the public domain
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[email protected] Introduction
In this paper, I will be questioning drug therapy for depression and anxiety (put simply, antidepressants). Many implications of the topic shall be discussed. These include: general information, the statistics of antidepressant usage, how antidepressants relate to the medical model, the efficacy of antidepressants, and how antidepressants can be understood through sociological frameworks. These frameworks include: structural-functionalism, conflict theory, and social constructionism. The purpose of this essay is to understand the cultural, physical, and theoretical aspects of antidepressants.
General Remarks
I would like to begin by looking at some of the main treatments available for depression and anxiety. There are three main classes of antidepressants: Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), tricyclic antidepressants, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). The use of these drugs is not limited to treating depression, but also anxiety and other mental disorders like phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Since these drugs treat both depression and anxiety, they will be the focus of the paper. Some of the more well-known brand names include: Nardil, Elavil, Prozac, and Celexa (Wade, Tavris and Saucier, 2013: 648). All of the aforementioned drugs are prescription drugs, and their biological purpose is to improve chemistry in the brain by balancing out neurotransmitters (Government of Canada, 2012). Neurotransmitters are important because they control mood and are necessary for normal brain functioning (Hauser, 2007). From this I draw two observations: their purpose is to improve mood and normalize thinking.
Statistics
An important question to consider when studying these types of drugs is “how many people are using these?” I will be looking at statistics which pertain to Canada and the United States. The first findings to be looked at were gathered from 2007 to 2009 and 2009 to 2011. In Canada, antidepressants were shown to be among the most prescribed drugs for people aged 6 to 24. For males, it was recorded that 67.7 out of 1,000 used antidepressants. For females, the number was significantly higher, at a rate of 280.3 per 1,000 people. Antidepressants were also shown to be widely used among people aged 25 to 79, particularly for women. For men between 25 and 44 years of age, the analysis rendered 190.8 out of 1,000. For men aged 45 to 64, the results rendered 381.9 per 1,000. The total for the age difference as a whole was not provided. Once again, women in this age category were more likely to use these drugs than men. The total for women aged 25 to 79 was 1,514.0 per 1,000 (Rotermann, Sanmartin and Hennessy, 2014).
The statistics to be looked at for antidepressant use in the United States was gathered from 2005 to 2008 and published in 2011. The age groups include: 12 to 17, 18 to 39, 40 to 59, and 60 years and over. The percentage of men taking antidepressants were: 2.8% (12 to 17), 3.0% (18 to 39), 8.5% (40 to 59), 9.4% (60 years and over). Similar to Canada, antidepressant use was shown to be more popular among females. At the time of the study, women in the U.S. were 2.5 times more likely than men to use antidepressant medication. The percentage of women using antidepressants were: 4.6% (12 to 17), 9.2% (18 to 39), 22.8% (40 to 59), 18.6 (60 years and over) (Pratt, Brody and Gu, 2011).