Tricyclics: tremors, weight gain, aggression, blood pressure problems, irregular heartbeat
This can stop patients from taking medication, which means their symptoms are left untreated.
Another weakness is biased evidence
Goldacre (2013) found that drug companies selectively publish positive outcomes for the drugs their sponsors are selling. This is publication bias
This is unethical, but also lessens the validity of research into drug therapies. We do not know the full extent of SSRIs effectiveness in treating OCD if only positive results are published.
A strength is research support for effectiveness
Soomro et al. (2009) reviewed studies comparing SSRIs to placebos in treatment of OCD. Found that all studies reviewed showed significantly better results for the SSRIs than for placebo conditions.
Provides evidence for the effectiveness of SSRIs in reducing the severity of OCD symptoms and improving quality of life for OCD patients.
A weakness is alternative treatments
Skapinakis et al. The combination of drug treatments and psychological therapies are most effective.
Psychological therapies may be more effective in the long term to prevent relapse, which may be more likely to occur with drug treatments.
Maybe there are more suitable alternative treatments for OCD.
A strength is that SSRI's are cost effective and non disruptive
SSRIs are cheap compared to psychological therapies (e.g., CBT) and so is good value for NHS.
Furthermore, they do not disrupt patient’s lives, they can take drug treatments easily without having to work too hard.
Therefore, SSRI treatments are preferred by doctors and patients over psychological therapies.
