Loading...
When a patient does not respond to an antidepressant, the most common strategy is to switch to another antidepressant, but many questions arise: Which one should you select? How long does response take? Can clinical characteristics predict response or timing of response? To learn more, researchers reanalyzed STAR*D data on 438 patients who, after not responding to 12 weeks of citalopram, were randomized to sertraline, sustained-release bupropion, or extended-release venlafaxine for 14 weeks.
Dosing, guided by measurements of depression, was aggressive; 80% of patients completed ≥6 weeks of treatment. Overall, 131 patients responded, including 91 remitters (roughly 30% and 20%, respectively); the medications did not differ in reductions in sy…