Psychiatric patients in the United States are increasingly being put on medications instead of receiving in-depth psychotherapy. A report which studied the shift was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. The main factors which are responsible for a wider dependence on drugs rather than talk therapy are said to be reimbursement policies of health insurance plans as well as a new generation of psychotropic drugs which have relatively lesser side-effects.

The study revealed that in 1996-’97, around 44.4% of patients in the US underwent psychotherapy but this number fell to 28.4% in 2004-’05. again the percentage of psychiatrists who claimed to provide psychotherapy to all their patients fell from19.6% in 1996-‘97 to just 10.8% in 2004-’05. Keeping in with the results of earlier studies, researchers discovered that the patients from the wealthier group, who personally paid for their own therapy, were likely to receive this line of treatment.

The study which covered 14,108 psychiatric office visits over a ten year period drew its data from the National Ambulatory Medical Survey. The results pointed out that medical insurance reimbursement polices clearly favored repeated medication appointments of short durations over longer psychotherapy sessions. Another reason for the growing dependence on drugs was the aggressive marketing of anti-depressants or prescription drugs both to psychiatrists and patients.

-Kalyani Mookherji