Increased Psychotropic Medication Use
Are We Improving Mental Health Care or Drugging Our Kids?
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2001;155:545.
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THE STUDY by Rushton and Whitmire1 provides
further evidence of a continuous increase in the use of both stimulant medications
and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in the treatment of children.
To those who believe that we are overly and unnecessarily medicating children,
the results support their concern. However, for those who feel that services
for children are inadequate, the article reflects some improvement in the
identification and treatment of children with mental illness.
Certain aspects of these disparate views are likely true. We have made
significant progress in determining the efficacy of psychotropic medications
in the treatment of childhood mental illness. As the authors point out, there
is reasonable evidence for the efficacy of stimulant medications in the treatment
of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)2
and growing evidence for the efficacy of SSRIs.3
Further studies are needed because there is inadequate information about their
use in preschoolers and adolescents . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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Pediatric Stimulant and Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Prescription Trends: 1992 to 1998
Jerry L. Rushton and J. Timothy Whitmire
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2001;155(5):560-565.
ABSTRACT
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