Sunday 5 February 2012

Psychiatric drugs 'effective' in treating physical illness

The Nursing Times recently published an interesting article: Psychiatric drugs 'effective' in treating physical illness, (read it here), which raises some intriguing questions.
Although the article is quite misleading and unclear, the title was what really caught my eye. It suggests that there is psychiatric element to many physical illnesses, since psychiatric drugs can effectively used to treat it. I wonder how much doctors consider this, or the wider idea of treating a physical illness with mental therapy? The big challenges with that would be getting both patient and doctor to accept the role (however large or small) of the mind in the health condition.
As it happens, the title is very misleading, and the original paper actually compares the effectiveness of psychiatric drugs in psychiatric patients with the effectiveness of 'normal' drugs in patients with physical illness.
But what a powerful headline!

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