Tag: Biopsychiatry

What is Biological Psychiatry?

Published on by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biological function of the nervous system. It is interdisciplinary in its approach and draws on sciences such as neuroscience, psychopharmacology, biochemistry, genetics, epigenetics and physiology to investigate the biological bases of behaviour and psychopathology. Biopsychiatry is the branch of medicine which deals with the study of the biological function of the nervous system in mental disorders.

There is some overlap with neurology, which focuses on disorders where gross or visible pathology of the nervous system is apparent, such as epilepsy, cerebral palsy, encephalitis, neuritis, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. There is also some overlap with neuropsychiatry, which typically deals with behavioural disturbances in the context of apparent brain disorder. In contrast biological psychiatry describes the basic principles and then delves deeper into various disorders. It is structured to follow the organisation of the DSM-IV, psychiatry’s primary diagnostic and classification guide. The contributions of this field explore functional neuroanatomy, imaging, and neuropsychology and pharmacotherapeutic possibilities for depression, anxiety and mood disorders, substance abuse and eating disorders, schizophrenia and psychotic disorders, and cognitive and personality disorders.

Biological psychiatry and other approaches to mental illness are not mutually exclusive, but may simply attempt to deal with the phenomena at different levels of explanation. Because of the focus on the biological function of the nervous system, however, biological psychiatry has been particularly important in developing and prescribing drug-based treatments for mental disorders.

In practice, however, psychiatrists may advocate both medication and psychological therapies when treating mental illness. The therapy is more likely to be conducted by clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, occupational therapists or other mental health workers who are more specialised and trained in non-drug approaches.

The history of the field extends back to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, but the phrase biological psychiatry was first used in peer-reviewed scientific literature in 1953. The phrase is more commonly used in the United States than in some other countries such as the UK. However the term “biological psychiatry” is sometimes used as a phrase of disparagement in controversial dispute.

Brief History

Early 20th Century

Sigmund Freud was originally focused on the biological causes of mental illness. Freud’s professor and mentor, Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke, strongly believed that thought and behaviour were determined by purely biological factors. Freud initially accepted this and was convinced that certain drugs (particularly cocaine) functioned as antidepressants. He spent many years trying to “reduce” personality to neurology, a cause he later gave up on before developing his now well-known psychoanalytic theories.

Nearly 100 years ago, Harvey Cushing, the father of neurosurgery, noted that pituitary gland problems often cause mental health disorders. He wondered whether the depression and anxiety he observed in patients with pituitary disorders were caused by hormonal abnormalities, the physical tumour itself, or both.

Mid 20th Century

An important point in modern history of biological psychiatry was the discovery of modern antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs. Chlorpromazine (also known as Thorazine), an antipsychotic, was first synthesized in 1950. In 1952, iproniazid, a drug being trialled against tuberculosis, was serendipitously discovered to have anti-depressant effects, leading to the development of MAOIs as the first class of antidepressants. In 1959 imipramine, the first tricyclic antidepressant, was developed. Research into the action of these drugs led to the first modern biological theory of mental health disorders called the catecholamine theory, later broadened to the monoamine theory, which included serotonin. These were popularly called the “chemical imbalance” theory of mental health disorders.

Late 20th Century

Starting with fluoxetine (marketed as Prozac) in 1988, a series of monoamine-based antidepressant medications belonging to the class of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors were approved. These were no more effective than earlier antidepressants, but generally had fewer side effects. Most operate on the same principle, which is modulation of monoamines (neurotransmitters) in the neuronal synapse. Some drugs modulate a single neurotransmitter (typically serotonin). Others affect multiple neurotransmitters, called dual action or multiple action drugs. They are no more effective clinically than single action versions. That most antidepressants invoke the same biochemical method of action may explain why they are each similarly effective in rough terms. Recent research indicates antidepressants often work but are less effective than previously thought.

Problems with Catecholamine/Monoamine Hypotheses

The monoamine hypothesis was compelling, especially based on apparently successful clinical results with early antidepressant drugs, but even at the time there were discrepant findings. Only a minority of patients given the serotonin-depleting drug reserpine became depressed; in fact reserpine even acted as an antidepressant in many cases. This was inconsistent with the initial monoamine theory which said depression was caused by neurotransmitter deficiency.

Another problem was the time lag between antidepressant biological action and therapeutic benefit. Studies showed the neurotransmitter changes occurred within hours, yet therapeutic benefit took weeks.

To explain these behaviours, more recent modifications of the monoamine theory describe a synaptic adaptation process which takes place over several weeks. Yet this alone does not appear to explain all of the therapeutic effects.

Scope and Detailed Definition

Biological psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry where the focus is chiefly on researching and understanding the biological basis of major mental disorders such as unipolar and bipolar affective (mood) disorders, schizophrenia and organic mental disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. This knowledge has been gained using imaging techniques, psychopharmacology, neuroimmunochemistry and so on. Discovering the detailed interplay between neurotransmitters and the understanding of the neurotransmitter fingerprint of psychiatric drugs such as clozapine has been a helpful result of the research.

On a research level, it includes all possible biological bases of behaviour – biochemical, genetic, physiological, neurological and anatomical. On a clinical level, it includes various therapies, such as drugs, diet, avoidance of environmental contaminants, exercise, and alleviation of the adverse effects of life stress, all of which can cause measurable biochemical changes. The biological psychiatrist views all of these as possible aetiologies of or remedies for mental health disorders.

However, the biological psychiatrist typically does not discount talk therapies. Medical psychiatric training generally includes psychotherapy and biological approaches. Accordingly, psychiatrists are usually comfortable with a dual approach:

“psychotherapeutic methods […] are as indispensable as psychopharmacotherapy in a modern psychiatric clinic”.

Basis for Biological Psychiatry

Sigmund Freud developed psychotherapy in the early 1900s, and through the 1950s this technique was prominent in treating mental health disorders.

However, in the late 1950s, the first modern antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs were developed: chlorpromazine (also known as Thorazine), the first widely used antipsychotic, was synthesized in 1950, and iproniazid, one of the first antidepressants, was first synthesized in 1957. In 1959 imipramine, the first tricyclic antidepressant, was developed.

Based significantly on clinical observations of the above drug results, in 1965 the seminal paper “The catecholamine hypothesis of affective disorders” was published. It articulated the “chemical imbalance” hypothesis of mental health disorders, especially depression. It formed much of the conceptual basis for the modern era in biological psychiatry.

The hypothesis has been extensively revised since its advent in 1965. More recent research points to deeper underlying biological mechanisms as the possible basis for several mental health disorders.

Modern brain imaging techniques allow non-invasive examination of neural function in patients with mental health disorders, however this is currently experimental. With some disorders it appears the proper imaging equipment can reliably detect certain neurobiological problems associated with a specific disorder. If further studies corroborate these experimental results, future diagnosis of certain mental health disorders could be expedited using such methods.

Another source of data indicating a significant biological aspect of some mental health disorders is twin studies. Identical twins have the same nuclear DNA, so carefully constructed studies may indicate the relative importance of environmental and genetic factors on the development of a particular mental health disorder.

The results from this research and the associated hypotheses form the basis for biological psychiatry and the treatment approaches in a clinical setting.

Scope of Clinical Biological Psychiatric Treatment

Since various biological factors can affect mood and behaviour, psychiatrists often evaluate these before initiating further treatment. For example, dysfunction of the thyroid gland may mimic a major depressive episode, or hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar) may mimic psychosis.

While pharmacological treatments are used to treat many mental disorders, other non-drug biological treatments are used as well, ranging from changes in diet and exercise to transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroconvulsive therapy. Types of non-biological treatments such as cognitive therapy, behavioural therapy, and psychodynamic psychotherapy are often used in conjunction with biological therapies. Biopsychosocial models of mental illness are widely in use, and psychological and social factors play a large role in mental disorders, even those with an organic basis such as schizophrenia.

Diagnostic Process

Correct diagnosis is important for mental health disorders, otherwise the condition could worsen, resulting in a negative impact on both the patient and the healthcare system. Another problem with misdiagnosis is that a treatment for one condition might exacerbate other conditions. In other cases apparent mental health disorders could be a side effect of a serious biological problem such as concussion, brain tumour, or hormonal abnormality, which could require medical or surgical intervention.

Examples of Biologic Treatments

Latest Biological Hypotheses of Mental Health Disorders

New research indicates different biological mechanisms may underlie some mental health disorders, only indirectly related to neurotransmitters and the monoamine chemical imbalance hypothesis.

Recent research indicates a biological “final common pathway” may exist which both electroconvulsive therapy and most current antidepressant drugs have in common. These investigations show recurrent depression may be a neurodegenerative disorder, disrupting the structure and function of brain cells, destroying nerve cell connections, even killing certain brain cells, and precipitating a decline in overall cognitive function.

In this new biological psychiatry viewpoint, neuronal plasticity is a key element. Increasing evidence points to various mental health disorders as a neurophysiological problem which inhibits neuronal plasticity.

This is called the neurogenic hypothesis of depression. It promises to explain pharmacological antidepressant action, including the time lag from taking the drug to therapeutic onset, why downregulation (not just upregulation) of neurotransmitters can help depression, why stress often precipitates mood disorders, and why selective modulation of different neurotransmitters can help depression. It may also explain the neurobiological mechanism of other non-drug effects on mood, including exercise, diet and metabolism. By identifying the neurobiological “final common pathway” into which most antidepressants funnel, it may allow rational design of new medications which target only that pathway. This could yield drugs which have fewer side effects, are more effective and have quicker therapeutic onset.

There is significant evidence that oxidative stress plays a role in schizophrenia.

Criticism

Refer to Biopsychiatry Controversy.

A number of patients, activists, and psychiatrists dispute biological psychiatry as a scientific concept or as having a proper empirical basis, for example arguing that there are no known biomarkers for recognized psychiatric conditions. This position has been represented in academic journals such as The Journal of Mind and Behaviour and Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, which publishes material specifically countering “the idea that emotional distress is due to an underlying organic disease.” Alternative theories and models instead view mental disorders as non-biomedical and might explain it in terms of, for example, emotional reactions to negative life circumstances or to acute trauma.

Fields such as social psychiatry, clinical psychology, and sociology may offer non-biomedical accounts of mental distress and disorder for certain ailments and are sometimes critical of biopsychiatry. Social critics believe biopsychiatry fails to satisfy the scientific method because they believe there is no testable biological evidence of mental disorders. Thus, these critics view biological psychiatry as a pseudoscience attempting to portray psychiatry as a biological science.

R.D. Laing argued that attributing mental disorders to biophysical factors was often flawed due to the diagnostic procedure. The “complaint” is often made by a family member, not the patient, the “history” provided by someone other than patient, and the “examination” consists of observing strange, incomprehensible behaviour. Ancillary tests (EEG, PET) are often done after diagnosis, when treatment has begun, which makes the tests non-blind and incurs possible confirmation bias. The psychiatrist Thomas Szasz commented frequently on the limitations of the medical approach to psychiatry and argued that mental illnesses are medicalized problems in living.

Silvano Arieti, while approving of the use of medication in some cases of schizophrenia, preferred intensive psychotherapy without medication if possible. He was also known for approving the use of electroconvulsive therapy on those with disorganised schizophrenia in order to make them reachable by psychotherapy. The views he expressed in Interpretation of Schizophrenia are nowadays known as the trauma model of mental disorders, an alternative to the biopsychiatric model.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_psychiatry >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is Social Psychiatry?

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Introduction

Social psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that focuses on the interpersonal and cultural context of mental disorder and mental wellbeing.

It involves a sometimes disparate set of theories and approaches, with work stretching from epidemiological survey research on the one hand, to an indistinct boundary with individual or group psychotherapy on the other. Social psychiatry combines a medical training and perspective with fields such as social anthropology, social psychology, cultural psychiatry, sociology and other disciplines relating to mental distress and disorder. Social psychiatry has been particularly associated with the development of therapeutic communities, and to highlighting the effect of socioeconomic factors on mental illness. Social psychiatry can be contrasted with biopsychiatry, with the latter focused on genetics, brain neurochemistry and medication. Social psychiatry was the dominant form of psychiatry for periods of the 20th century but is currently less visible than biopsychiatry.

After reviewing the history and activities of social psychiatry, Vincenzo Di Nicola reviews three major questions for social psychiatry and concludes with a manifesto for a 21st-century social psychiatry:

  1. What is social about psychiatry? This addresses definitional problems that arise, such as binary thinking, and the need for a common language.
  2. What are the theory and practice of social psychiatry? Issues include social psychiatry’s core principles, values, and operational criteria; the social determinants of health and the Global Mental Health (GMH) Movement; and the need for translational research. This part of the review establishes the minimal criteria for a coherent theory of social psychiatry and the view of persons that emerges from such a theory, the social self.
  3. Why the time has come for a manifesto for social psychiatry. This manifesto outlines the parameters for a theory of social psychiatry, based on both the social self and the social determinants of health, to offer an inclusive social definition of health, concluding with a call for action.

Brief History

The events of the first half of the 20th century brought the issue of the relationship between the individual and the community to the fore. Psychiatrists who showed a willingness to confront these issues at home, after the war, called themselves social psychiatrists. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy and all its offshoots were grounded in an approach to the patient that focused almost exclusively on the individual – the relational aspects of therapy were implicit in the relationship between therapist and patient, but the main source of problem and motivation for change was seen as being intrapsychic (within the individual). The social and political contexts were largely disregarded. Sarason observed in 1981, that:

“it is as though society does not exist for the psychologist. Society is a vague, amorphous background that can be disregarded in one’s efforts to fathom the laws of behavior” (Sarason 1981).

Early landmarks in social psychiatry included: Karen Horney, MD, who wrote about personality as it interacts with other people (1937); Erik Erikson, who discussed the influence of society on development (1950); Harry Stack Sullivan’s (1953) integration of sociological and psychodynamic concepts, and his work on the role of early interpersonal interactions in the development of the self; Cornell University’s Midtown Manhattan Study, which looked at the prevalence of mental illness in Manhattan; August Hollingshead, PhD, and Frederick Redlich, MD, looked at the influence of social class on psychiatric conditions (1958); Alexander H. Leighton, MD, looked at the relationship between social disintegration and mental illness (1959); Burrow was an early pioneer of the social causes of mental disorder and suggested “Sociatry” as the name for this new discipline.

Over the years many sociologists have contributed theories and research which has enlightened psychiatry in this area (e.g. Avison and Robins); The relationship between social factors and mental illness was demonstrated by the early work of Hollingshead and Readlich in Chicago in the 1930s, who found a high concentration of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia in deprived areas of the city has been replicated numerous times throughout the world, although controversy still exists as to the extent of drift of vulnerable individuals to these areas or of a higher incidence of the disorder in the socially disadvantaged; the Midtown Manhattan Study conducted in the 1950s by Cornell University hinted at widespread psychopathology among the general population of New York City (Srole, Sanger, Michael, Opler, and Rennie, 1962); the Three Hospitals Study (Wing, J.K. and Brown, G.W. (1967) Social Treatments of Chronic Schizophrenia: a comparative survey of three mental hospitals. Journal of Mental Science. 107, pp.847-861) was a very influential work that has been replicated, that demonstrated forcefully that the poverty of the environment in poor mental hospitals lead to greater handicaps in the patients.

Social psychiatry was instrumental in the development of therapeutic communities. Under the influence of Maxwell Jones, Main, Wilmer and others (Caudill, 1958; Rapoport, 1960), combined with the publications of critiques of the existing mental health system (Greenblatt et al., 1957, Stanton and Schwartz, 1954) and the sociopolitical influences that permeated the psychiatric world, the concept of the therapeutic community and its attenuated form – the therapeutic milieu – caught on and dominated the field of inpatient psychiatry throughout the 1960s. The aim of therapeutic communities was a more democratic, user-led form of therapeutic environment, avoiding the authoritarian and demeaning practices of many psychiatric establishments of the time. The central philosophy is that clients are active participants in their own and each other’s mental health treatment and that responsibility for the daily running of the community is shared among the clients and the staff. “TCs” have often eschewed or limited medication in favour of psychoanalytically derived group-based insight therapies.

Current Work

Social psychiatry can be most effectively applied in helping to develop mental health promotion and prevent certain mental illnesses by educating individuals, families, and societies.

Social psychiatry has been important in developing the concept of major “life events” as precipitants of mental ill health, including, for example, bereavement, promotion, moving house, or having a child.

Originally inpatient centres, many therapeutic communities now operate as day centres, often focused on borderline personality disorder and run by psychotherapists or art therapists rather than psychiatrists.

Social psychiatrists help test the cross-cultural use of psychiatric diagnoses and assessments of need or disadvantage, showing particular links between mental illness and unemployment, overcrowding and single parent families.

Social psychiatrists also work to link concepts such as self-esteem and self-efficacy to mental health, and in turn to socioeconomic factors.

Social psychiatrists work on social firms in regard to people with mental health problems. These are regular businesses in the market that employ a significant number of people with disabilities, who are paid regular wages and work on the basis of regular work contracts. There are approximately 2,000 social firms in Europe and a large percentage of people with disabilities who work in social firms have a psychiatric disability. Some are specifically for people with psychiatric disabilities. (Schwarz, G., & Higgins, G, (1999) Marienthal the social firms network Supporting the Development of Social Firms in Europe, UK).

Social psychiatrists often focus on rehabilitation in a social context, rather than “treatment” per se. A related approach is community psychiatry.

Facilitating the social inclusion of people with mental health problems is a major focus of modern social psychiatry.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_psychiatry >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is the Biopsychiatry Controversy?

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Introduction

The biopsychiatry controversy is a dispute over which viewpoint should predominate and form a basis of psychiatric theory and practice.

The debate is a criticism of a claimed strict biological view of psychiatric thinking. Its critics include disparate groups such as the antipsychiatry movement and some academics.

Overview of Opposition to Biopsychiatry

Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry aims to investigate determinants of mental disorders devising remedial measures of a primarily somatic nature.

This has been criticised by Alvin Pam for being a “stilted, unidimensional, and mechanistic world-view”, so that subsequent “research in psychiatry has been geared toward discovering which aberrant genetic or neurophysiological factors underlie and cause social deviance”. According to Pam the “blame the body” approach, which typically offers medication for mental distress, shifts the focus from disturbed behaviour in the family to putative biochemical imbalances.

Research Issues

2003 Status in Biopsychiatric Research

Biopsychiatric research has produced reproducible abnormalities of brain structure and function, and a strong genetic component for a number of psychiatric disorders (although the latter has never been shown to be causative, merely correlative). It has also elucidated some of the mechanisms of action of medications that are effective in treating some of these disorders. Still, by their own admission, this research has not progressed to the stage that they can identify clear biomarkers of these disorders.

Research has shown that serious neurobiological disorders such as schizophrenia reveal reproducible abnormalities of brain structure (such as ventricular enlargement) and function. Compelling evidence exists that disorders including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism to name a few have a strong genetic component. Still, brain science has not advanced to the point where scientists or clinicians can point to readily discernible pathologic lesions or genetic abnormalities that in and of themselves serve as reliable or predictive biomarkers of a given mental disorder or mental disorders as a group. Ultimately, no gross anatomical lesion such as a tumour may ever be found; rather, mental disorders will likely be proven to represent disorders of intercellular communication; or of disrupted neural circuitry. Research already has elucidated some of the mechanisms of action of medications that are effective for depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, attention deficit, and cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. These medications clearly exert influence on specific neurotransmitters, naturally occurring brain chemicals that effect, or regulate, communication between neurons in regions of the brain that control mood, complex reasoning, anxiety, and cognition. In 1970, The Nobel Prize was awarded to Julius Axelrod, Ph.D., of the National Institute of Mental Health, for his discovery of how anti-depressant medications regulate the availability of neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine in the synapses, or gaps, between nerve cells. (American Psychiatric Association, Statement on Diagnosis and Treatment of Mental Disorders, 26 September 2003).

Focus on Genetic Factors

Researchers have proposed that most common psychiatric and drug abuse disorders can be traced to a small number of dimensions of genetic risk and reports show significant associations between specific genomic regions and psychiatric disorders. Though, to date only a few genetic lesions have been demonstrated to be mechanistically responsible for psychiatric conditions. For example, one reported finding suggests that in persons diagnosed as schizophrenic as well as in their relatives with chronic psychiatric illnesses, the gene that encodes phosphodiesterase 4B (PDE4B) is disrupted by a balanced translocation.

The reasons for the relative lack of genetic understanding is because the links between genes and mental states defined as abnormal appear highly complex, involve extensive environmental influences and can be mediated in numerous different ways, for example by personality, temperament or life events. Therefore, while twin studies and other research suggests that personality is heritable to some extent, finding the genetic basis for particular personality or temperament traits, and their links to mental health problems, is “at least as hard as the search for genes involved in other complex disorders.” Theodore Lidz and The Gene Illusion argue that biopsychiatrists use genetic terminology in an unscientific way to reinforce their approach. Joseph maintains that biopsychiatrists disproportionately focus on understanding the genetics of those individuals with mental health problems at the expense of addressing the problems of the living in the environments of some extremely abusive families or societies.

Focus on Biochemical Factors

The chemical imbalance hypothesis states that a chemical imbalance within the brain is the main cause of psychiatric conditions and that these conditions can be improved with medication which corrects this imbalance. In that, emotions within a “normal” spectrum reflect a proper balance of neurotransmitter function, but abnormally extreme emotions which are severe enough to impact the daily functioning of patients (as seen in schizophrenia) reflect a profound imbalance. It is the goal of psychiatric intervention, therefore, to regain the homeostasis (via psychopharmacological approaches) that existed prior to the onset of disease.

This conceptual framework has been debated within the scientific community, although no other demonstrably superior hypothesis has emerged. Recently, the biopsychosocial approach to mental illness has been shown to be the most comprehensive and applicable theory in understanding psychiatric disorders. However, there is still much to be discovered in this area of inquiry. As a prime example – while great strides have been made in the field of understanding certain psychiatric disorders (such as schizophrenia) others (such as major depressive disorder) operate via multiple different neurotransmitters and interact in a complex array of systems which are (as yet) not completely understood.

Reductionism

Niall McLaren emphasizes in his books Humanizing Madness and Humanizing Psychiatry that the major problem with psychiatry is that it lacks a unified model of the mind and has become entrapped in a biological reductionist paradigm. The reasons for this biological shift are intuitive as reductionism has been very effective in other fields of science and medicine. However, despite reductionism’s efficacy in explaining the smallest parts of the brain this does not explain the mind, which is where he contends the majority of psychopathology stems from. An example would be that every aspect of a computer can be understood scientifically down to the last atom; however, this does not reveal the program that drives this hardware. He also argues that the widespread acceptance of the reductionist paradigm leads to a lack of openness to self-criticism and therefore halts the very engine of scientific progress. He has proposed his own natural dualist model of the mind, the biocognitive model, which is rooted in the theories of David Chalmers and Alan Turing and does not fall into the dualist’s trap of spiritualism.

Economic Influences on Psychiatric Practice

American Psychiatric Association president Steven S. Sharfstein, M.D. has stated that when the profit motive of pharmaceutical companies and human good are aligned, the results are mutually beneficial for all. In that, “Pharmaceutical companies have developed and brought to market medications that have transformed the lives of millions of psychiatric patients. The proven effectiveness of antidepressant, mood-stabilising, and antipsychotic medications has helped sensitize the public to the reality of mental illness and taught them that treatment works[citation needed]. In this way, Big Pharma has helped reduce stigma associated with psychiatric treatment and with psychiatrists.” However, Sharfstein acknowledged that the goals of individual physicians who deliver direct patient care can be different from the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. Conflicts arising from this disparity raise natural concerns in this regard including:

  • A “broken health care system” that allows “many patients [to be] prescribed the wrong drugs or drugs they don’t need”;
  • “medical education opportunities sponsored by pharmaceutical companies [that] are often biased toward one product or another”;
  • “[d]irect marketing to consumers [that] also leads to increased demand for medications and inflates expectations about the benefits of medications”;
  • “drug companies [paying] physicians to allow company reps to sit in on patient sessions to learn more about care for patients.”

Nevertheless, Sharfstein acknowledged that without pharmaceutical companies developing and producing modern medicines – virtually every medical specialty would have few (if any) treatments for the patients that they care for.

Pharmaceutical Industry Influences in Psychiatry

Studies have shown that promotional marketing by pharmaceutical and other companies has the potential to influence physician decision making. Pharmaceutical manufacturers (and other advocates) would argue that in today’s modern world – physicians simply do not have the time to continually update their knowledge base on the status of the latest research and that by providing educational materials for both physicians and patients, they are providing an educational perspective and that it is up to the individual physician to decide what treatment is best for their patients. The idea of pure promotion (e.g. lavish dinners) is a remnant of bygone era. It has been replaced by educationally-based activities that became the basis for the legal and industry reforms involving physician gifts, influence in graduate medical education, physician disclosure of conflicts of interest, and other promotional activities.

In an essay on the effect of advertisements for marketed anti-depressants there is some evidence that both patients and physicians can be influenced by media advertisements and this has the possibility of increasing the frequency of certain medicines being prescribed over others.