Use of mood stabilizer drugs in the treatment of major depressive dissorder in an outpatient mental health center

Results Mood stabilizers are used in 14% of the sample with a predominancy in the female gender (85.7%), a global average age 50.6 ± 12.2 years. Regarding personal psychiatric background, there’s an absence of these in the first place (64.3%), followed by the presence of previous depressive episodes (21.4%) and dysthymic disorder (7.1%). In none of these cases there was toxic abuse. There is a predominancy in the absence of previous psychiatric hospitalisations (64.3%). The frequencies of use of mood stabilizers was: topiramate in the first place (50%) followed by lithium, carbamazepine and pregabaline (14.28% each of them), in the last place lamotrigine (7.1%). The average dose was 900 mg/d for carbamazepine, 600 mg/d for lithium, 300 mg/d for pregabaline, 128.5 mg/d for topiramate and 100 mg/d for lamotrigine.