Nada Khan asks what GPs should tell patients when they ask how antidepressants ‘work’.1
Surely prescribers need to talk honestly with patients, explaining that it is unclear how antidepressants ‘work’, even for ‘depression’, and that serotonin has multiple effects — on all physiological systems as well as on feelings of overwhelm, hopelessness, and ‘depression’. These effects can include paradoxical suicidality, sexual dysfunction, blunted emotions, digestive problems, fatigue, weird dreams, and compulsions …