treating OCD

• A significant minority of users of SSRIs don't benefit from using them. Some patients also have side effects, such as indigestion, blurred vision, nausea and insomnia. For patients taking Clomipramine, side effects are more common and more serious. More than one in ten suffer tremors and weight gain.

  This is a weakness as these findings reduce the appropriateness of drug therapies as they are not suitable for all patients.

  It also reduces effectiveness, in some cases, as the side effects are often bad enough for people to stop taking the medication.
• Some psychologists have pointed out that evidence favouring drug treatments may be biased because the research is sponsored by drug companies who do not report all of the evidence.

  Drug companies have a strong interest in the continuing success of psychotherapeutic drugs and this suggests that the data on the effectiveness of drugs may not be trustworthy.

  There is a publication bias towards studies that show positive outcomes for the use of antidepressants, thus exaggerating the benefits of such drugs.
• Drug therapies are generally cheaper compared to psychological treatments. SSRIs are also less disruptive to patients' lives.

  And so, the drug is less time consuming and also cheaper which makes it more suitable to relative cultures. This may be easier than CBT which requires patients to attend regular meeting and put considerable thought into tackling their problems.
• Research suggests that patients often relapse within a few weeks if medication is stopped. This questions the effectiveness of drug therapies in treating OCD as the risk of relapsing suggests that the therapy only temporarily reduces the symptoms and anxiety associated with OCD.

  This suggests that psychological treatments, which focus more on the cognitions and behaviours of the individual with OCD, may be more effective in producing longer-lasting effects after the therapy and so in treating OCD.
• One strength of SSRIs comes from research support for their effectiveness. Randomised drug trials compare the effectiveness of SSRIs and a placebo drug.

  Soomro et al. conducted a review of research examining the effectiveness of SSRIs and found that they were significantly more effective than placebos in the treatment of OCD, across 17 different trials.

  This supports the use of biological treatments, esp SSRIs, for OCD. However, studies such as this criticised for only concluding the short term effectiveness of drug treatments with long term effects still to be investigated empirically.