ArticleEpidemiology and psychiatric sciences2018
Research on a 'drug-centred' approach to psychiatric drug treatment: assessing the impact of mental and behavioural alterations produced by psychiatric drugs.
Article in Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Emotional Blunting During Antidepressant Treatment: Implications for Clinical Decision-Making and Patient-Centred Care.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2026Review
- Lived experience as systems-relevant evidence in psychedelic public health.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Institutional Corruption in the Political Economy of Global Mental Health: Challenges for Transformative Human Rights Praxis.Health and human rights · 2025Article
- Medications associated with dizziness or hypotension and adverse outcomes: an electronic health record study in older adults with dementia.Age and ageing · 2025Article
- Targeted Treatment of Schizophrenia Symptoms as They Manifest, or Continuous Treatment to Reduce the Risk of Psychosis Recurrence.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2024Article
- Suffering and Salutogenesis: A Conceptual Analysis of Lessons for Psychiatry From Existential Positive Psychology (PP2.0) in the Setting of the COVID-19 Pandemic.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Review
- Esketamine clinical trials: reply to MajuEpidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2020Article
- Do DSM classifications help or hinder drug development? .Dialogues in clinical neuroscience · 2020Review
- Esketamine for treatment resistant depression: a trick of smoke and mirrors?Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2019Article
- Safety of psychotropic medicines: contribution from observational evidence.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2018Article
- A parallel universe where psychiatry is like the rest of medicine.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2018Article
- Complexity of Psychological and Behavioral Science in Diabetes: The 2025 Richard R. Rubin Award Lecture.Diabetes, obesity, and cardiometabolic CAREReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsThis article explores an alternative understanding of how psychiatric drugs work that is referred to as the drug-centred model of drug action. Unlike the current disease-centred model, which suggests that psychiatric drugs work by correcting an underlying brain abnormality, the drug-centred model emphasises how psychiatric drugs affect mental states and behaviour by modifying normal brain processes. The alterations produced may impact on the emotional and behavioural problems that constitute the symptoms of mental disorders.
methodsArguments are put forward that justify the consideration of the drug-centred model. The research necessary to support the prescription of drugs according to such a model is explored.
resultsEvidence from neurochemistry and comparative drug trials do not confirm the disease-centred model of drug action. Since psychiatric drugs are recognised to have mind- and behaviour-altering properties, the drug-centred model constitutes a plausible alternative. The drug-centred model suggests that research is needed to identify all the alterations produced by various sorts of drugs, both acute and long term, and how these might interact with the symptoms and problems associated with different mental disorders. This requires detailed animal and volunteer studies and data from patients prescribed drug treatment long term, along with placebo-controlled and comparative trials that look at the overall impact of drug-induced alterations on well-being and functioning as well as symptoms. Research is also needed on alternative ways of fulfilling the function of drug treatment. The moral aspect of using drugs to modify behaviour rather than treat disease needs honest and transparent consideration.
conclusionsIt is hoped this discussion will encourage the psychiatric and pharmaceutical research community to provide more of the information that is required to use psychiatric drugs safely and effectively.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.