Depression 'over-diagnosed' with drugs dished out to patients who are simply sad or unable to sleep

Million of patients are being wrongly diagnosed with depression when they are simply sad, according to a new report.

Anti-depressants are being dished out to people grieving loved ones, suffering sexual problems or even unable to sleep, claims a newly-published scientific paper published by academics at Liverpool University.

The number of people diagnosed with mental illnesses like depression has doubled since 2002. It is believed more than five million people are now labelled depressed or suffering anxiety in the UK.

Liverpool University's Professor of Primary Medical Care, Chris Dowrick, claims in a new report that up to half of these patients have been misdiagnosed.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, the academic, who also works as a GP, said: 'Over-diagnosis is now more common than under diagnosis.'

He has called for guidelines on diagnosing depression to be tightened and for pharmaceutical companies to be banned from marketing their drugs to GPs.

'Over recent decades there has been an increasing tendency, especially in primary care, to diagnose depression in patients presenting with sadness or distress and offer them anti-depressant medication,' he wrote. Read more at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2534408/Depression-diagnosed-drugs-dished-patients-simply-sad-unable-sleep-warns-expert.html