Role of serotonin drugs in the treatment of social phobia.
The use of psychotropic agents (particularly serotonin active drugs) for the treatment of patients suffering from social phobia is reviewed in this report. Several important caveats should be kept in mind when reading this paper. First, the etiology of social phobia is not known; what we currently call social phobia is probably a heterogeneous collection of anxiety syndromes with the common symptomatic theme of interpersonal sensitivity. Second, the mechanism of action of psychotropic medications is not known; drugs which bind at serotonin receptors may, in fact, mediate clinical improvement via an entirely different mechanism. Third, while several agents appear clinically helpful for the treatment of patients suffering from social phobia, there is no drug currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for this indication.
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Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, University Health Center 9B, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI 48201, USA. mtancer@med.wayne.edu