Should a patient first be diagnosed with a psychiatric problem before receiving a prescription? Well, nearly 73 percent of antidepressants prescribed in the US in 2007 were generated without a psychiatric diagnosis, up from nearly 60 percent in 1996. And the percentage of antidepressants prescribed to patients without a diagnosis more than doubled to 6.4 percent from 2.5 percent of all visits to docs who were not psychiatrists, according to a study in Health Affairs. To be more specific, among primary care providers, antidepressant prescriptions rose from 3.1 percent during that period to 7.1 percent.
