A Study of the Use of Antidepressant Medication in General Practice

Several surveys (Carstairs and Bruhn, 1962; Shepherd et al ., 1966; and Johnson, 1973a) have demonstrated that the treatment of psychiatric disorders in general practice consists principally of prescribing drugs, with relatively little use of social agencies and psychotherapy. Although Shepherd et al . (1966) comment that the treatment is often haphazard and inadequate, the published surveys of general practice give little specific information about the prescribing habits of doctors. The present author surveyed the prescribing habits of general practitioners in the treatment of depression in the belief that it is necessary to have this information in order to evaluate the need for education in this clinical expertise, and also to act as a comparison for other surveys which will undoubtedly be carried out in the future to test the effectiveness of the current expansion of undergraduate teaching in psychiatry.