SSRI'S:

• STRENGTH:

  • Good evidence for its effectiveness
  • Clear evidence showing SSRIs reduce symptom severity and improve the quality of life for people with OCD.
  • IE Soomro et al 2009 reviewed 17 studies that compared SSRIs to placebos in the treatment of OCD
  • All 17 showed significantly better outcomes for SSRIs than for the placebo conditions
  • Typically symptoms reduce for around 70% of people taking SSRIs For the remaining 30%, most can be helped by either alternative drugs or combinations of drugs and psychological therapies.

  This means that drugs appear to be helpful for most people with OCD.
• COUNTEPOINT:

  • There is some evidence to suggest that even if drug treatments are helpful for most people with OCD they may not be the most effective treatments available
  • Skapinakis et al. (2016) carried out a systematic review of outcome studies and concluded that both cognitive and behavioural (exposure) therapies were more effective than SSRIs in the treatment of OCD.

  This means that drugs may not be the optimum treatment for OCD.
• STRENGTH:

  • cost-effective and non-disruptive to people's lives
  • Strength of drug treatments for disorders is they're cheap compared to psychological treatments as thousands of tablets doses can be made in the time it takes to conduct one session of therapy
  • Using drugs to treat OCD is good value for public health systems ie NHS
  • Compared to therapy SSRIs are also non disruptive to people's lives
  • If you wish you can simply take drugs until your symptoms decline different from therapy as it involves time spent attending therapy session

  Drugs are popular with people with OCD + their doctors