Drugs vs. talk therapy: 3,079 readers rate their care for depression and anxiety

With or without drugs, most people who sought care for depression or anxiety gained relief. A survey of thousands of CR subscribers who recently received treatment for those conditions found that: (1) a combination of talk therapy and drugs often worked best. But "mostly talk" therapy was almost as effective if it lasted for 13 or more visits. (2) "Mostly drug" therapy was also effective for many people. Drugs had a quicker impact on symptoms than talk therapy, but it often took trial and error to find a drug that worked without unacceptable side effects. (3) Forty percent of people who took antidepressants complained of adverse sexual side effects. (4) Care from primary-care doctors was effective for people with mild problems, but less so for people with severe ones.