Since July 2017 the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR) UK has been leading a major stakeholder campaign calling on the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to conduct a “full and proper revision” of its 2009 guidelines on the Recognition and Management of Depression in Adults.
Dozens of leading health organisations and individuals have joined the stakeholder coalition and signed the position statement. They stress that if the identified serious methodological flaws are not adequately addressed, it would result in misleading treatment recommendations affecting the care of millions of people suffering from depression. It would furthermore effect existing treatment services, the psychotherapeutic workforce and future research practices.
Early in 2019, pressure from the coalition, supported by important UK MPs and peers, led to an unprecedented achievement: a third draft revision of the guidelines. However, the identified flaws have still not been adequately addressed.
In Time for a Sea-Change: NICE Guidelines Need a Revised Methodology, Dr Felicitas Rost – president of the SPR UK Chapter and research lead at the Tavistock and Portman Clinic in London – provides an overview of the stakeholder campaign, as well as outlining in some detail the key methodological concerns raised.
You can watch a video of her presentation here.
I am sorry that sure an initiative is not taking place in the US to revise the guidelines that have hurt those that have used a broken mental health system that believes in psychologists, psychiatrists, psychiatric medications and psychiatric hospitalization.