Depression diagnosis remains a tedious task due to the many symptoms as well as the other mental illness that share these same indicators. One would believe that a licensed mental professional diagnoses children and thus writes prescriptions, however, primary care doctors write a large sum of child prescriptions (Koch 596). It is difficult to believe that these physicians are adequately assessing an adolescent's mental health. Psychiatrists believe that in order to correc

Often times children diagnosed with depression contain symptoms that are related to other mental illnesses, social problems, or mood disturbances that have nothing to do with a long term depressive disease. Symptoms such as poor self esteem or guilt run rampant in America's schools. Such a sign can result from all sorts of sources other than mental illness. As well, this symptom may lead to other "depression symptoms" that are still not depression related. These signs leave too large a gray area for an unqualified physician to make a mistake in leading to numerous unjust prescriptions for potentially mind altering drugs. In the Aldous Huxley novel, Brave New World, the government forces the society to take a mood stabilizing and euphoric drug called soma. Is this where America and maybe the world is headed? Many teenagers find themselves in situations that make them depressed for long periods of time except now, this teenager may be put on an antidepressant (Koch 599). Some psychiatrists fear that as pharmaceutical technology grows other psychiatrist will prescribe drugs for a slew of mood disturbances (Koch 599). With the creation of "social anxiety disorder" the psychiatric community may soon be prescribing "antidepressants for shyness (Koch 599). After all, doesn't everyone want to be emotionally perfect?

Antidepressants remain untested for use with children making thousand of kids into guinea pigs for doctor experimentation. This occurs because once the FDA approves any drug for adult prescriptions these same prescriptions can be "off-labeled" to children (Koch 606). Such prescriptions could have very different side effects in children and adolescents than they do in adults. For instance, a medication that creates nervousness or agitation in an adult could cause a child to have a full-blown manic episode (Koch 606). These side effects pose dangerous problems to the kids that take them. It is true that "five of the eighty miscellaneous drugs prescribed to infants are labeled for pediatric use (Koch 606)." This is a strong argument for child medication proponents. While these psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies are not sure about the side effects of antidepressants they claim the benefits outweigh the dangers (Koch 607). Antidepressants may be worth the risk to children and adolescents with serious problems, however, those who do

Some common words found in the essay are:
Health Research, , Drug Administration, Brave World, Depressive Illness, North Carolina, Adolescent Psychology, Researcher July, Glasser Phoenix, koch 598, primary care, Magazine Sept, mental health, primary care doctors, childhood depression, child adolescent, koch 599, koch 596, mental illness, care doctors, children adolescents, managed care companies, koch 596 non-psychiatrists, psychiatrists fear primary, ten twenty minutes,
Approximate Word count = 1602
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)