BMJ  2005;330 (30 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7498.0-b

Depressed Britons could swap pills for talk

In the United Kingdom, the money spent on antidepressants between 1991 and 2002 would have been sufficient to employ 7700 cognitive behaviour therapists, who could have provided six sessions of treatment each year for more than 1.5 million people. Using data from the Department of Health, Hollinghurst and colleagues (p 999) estimated the opportunity cost of the rise in prescribing of antidepressants by valuing it in terms of cognitive behaviour therapy. The opportunity costs indicate that development of psychological therapies is a feasible alternative to antidepressants, say the authors.

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Opportunity cost of antidepressant prescribing in England: analysis of routine data

Sandra Hollinghurst, David Kessler, Tim J Peters, and David Gunnell
BMJ 2005 330: 999-1000. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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