Abstract
M. Comm.
Psychiatrists are medical doctors who have specialised in the field of Psychiatry.
Psychiatry is one of the five major fields in medicine, the other fields being Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Internal Medicine and Paediatrics. Psychiatrists treat psychiatric disorders by way of diagnosis and invariably the prescription of the appropriate medication. Sixty to seventy percent of the diagnoses made by psychiatrists in private practice involve the so-called mood disorders in which a depressed mood is a common occurence. Depression is mostly treated with anti-depressant medication. (Olfson and Klerman , 1993:572). Accumulating evidence suggests that the use of anti-depressant medications is increasing. Sclar et. al. examined data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey for the period 1990 through 1995. American National estimates of the number of office-based visits resulting in a prescription for or continuation of anti-depressant pharmacotherapy for any purpose escalated from 16 534 268 in 1990 to 28 664 796 in 1995, a 73,4% increase. (Sclar, Robinson, Skaer, Galin.1998:870) .although a Medline search cannot produce more recent
figures it is commonly accepted that the most widely prescribed anti-depressants today fall in the class known as the SSRI's which stands for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Use of a SSRI for the treatment of depression increased from 37.1% in 1990 to 64.6% in 1995. The first SSRI medication to become available on the South African market was fluoxetine under the trade name of Prozac in late 1987. (Preskorn, 1996: 18). To date approximately 25 million people have used Prozac worldwide. Prozac and other newer anti-depressants have been the topic of lead articles in national news magazines, best-selling books and widely watched television talk shows.