Relative risk of side effects may help influence treatment decisions.

Major depression is one of the most common psychiatric disorders in the United States, affecting more than 16% of adults at some point in their lives. Several antidepressants and other types of drugs are available to treat depression. The conventional wisdom, based on the large Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study and smaller studies, is that all antidepressants are about equal in terms of efficacy.

Because the side effects of first-generation antidepressants such as tricyclics or monoamine oxidase inhibitors have been tolerated less well than those of ...

Early studies produced mixed results, but new approaches are promising.

Since the 1970s, the "dopamine hypothesis" has been the dominant theory about how schizophrenia develops and causes its devastating symptoms. According to this theory, excessive transmission of the neurotransmitter dopamine produces positive symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and disordered thinking, while insufficient transmission may underlie cognitive deficits and negative symptoms such as blunted affect. Both first- and second-generation antipsychotics work primarily by blocking dopamine D2 receptors, thereby affecting dopamine transmission in the brain. But these drugs are relatively ineffective at treating the negative symptoms and cognitive deficits of schizophrenia, ...

Women who learned that they needed to undergo further testing for breast cancer experienced as much stress as women who learned they had breast cancer.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) now includes a mental health parity provision. A study suggests that a low copayment for mental health services may increase the likelihood that patients will receive the care they need.

Medical interventions may exacerbate anxiety, depression, and stress.

The case of the California woman who gave birth to octuplets generated enormous media coverage and public discussion about infertility treatments. But in many ways the case is what researchers might call an "outlier" — one that is not typical — and as such it has done little to illuminate the far more common, but usually private, psychological challenges faced by the roughly 1.3 million patients who receive infertility advice or treatment each year in the United States.

About 5% of couples living in the developed world experience primary infertility (inability to have ...

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Commentary Providing rewards for smokers who want to quit  It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it many times.

This old joke is reality for the almost three-quarters of current smokers who want to quit. Sadly, fewer than 3% of them succeed, because the well-known dangers of smoking turn out to be easy to ignore. Researchers publishing in the Archives of Internal Medicine and The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) have demonstrated that smoking-cessation can be facilitated by providing quick rewards to those who want to quit. In other words, tangible short-term gains seem to be more motivating ...

There are many reasons why a couple may have difficulty in conceiving a child. Disease, drugs, heredity, lifestyle habits or even exposure to certain toxins can affect fertility.