WHAT IS KNOWN AND OBJECTIVE Abundant clinical data now confirm that ketamine produces a remarkable rapid-onset antidepressant effect - hours or days - in contrast to the delayed onset (typically weeks) of current antidepressant drugs. This surprising and revolutionary finding may lead to the development of life-saving pharmacotherapy for depressive illness by reducing the high suicide risk asso...

Plasma antidepressant levels and clinical condition were measured sequentially for at least 24 hr in eight patients who presented with acute antidepressant overdosage. There was no evidence to suggest that a knowledge of the drug plasma levels had anything to offer in the management of a patient whose overdose included a tricyclic antidepressant.

Depressive symptoms and depressive illness are associated with impairments in sexual function and satisfaction but the findings of randomised placebo-controlled trials demonstrate that antidepressant drugs can be associated with the development or worsening of sexual dysfunction. Sexual difficulties during antidepressant treatment often resolve as depression lifts but may persist over long peri...

BACKGROUND The safety and tolerability of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and the newer atypical agents have led to a significant increase in antidepressant use. These changes raise concern as to the likelihood of a corresponding increase in adverse behavioral reactions attributable to these drugs. METHOD All admissions to a university-based general hospital psychiatric unit durin...

OBJECTIVE To carry out a metaanalysis of antidepressant studies to calculate the effect sizes for antidepressant effect in depressive disorder. METHOD A metaanalysis of all antidepressant studies that included an active comparison drug as well as placebo was used to calculate the effect size. Articles were selected from a MEDLINE search for the period January 1966 to June 1995. Forty-nine stu...

Antidepressant medications have eased the suffering of millions of people. In addition to treating depression, antidepressant drugs also treat several anxiety disorders. Unfortunately, there are problematic limitations with antidepressant agents, including a delayed therapeutic response and insufficient efficacy. Emerging evidence shows that atypical antipsychotic agents can be used as augmenta...

OBJECTIVE Prior efforts to assess the impact of antidepressant use on risk of suicide attempt focused on antidepressant initiation or duration of use. Gaps remain in understanding risks associated with antidepressant discontinuation in the context of the drug regimen. We assessed the effects of antidepressant discontinuation on the risk of suicide attempt. METHOD We report a nested case-contr...

BACKGROUND Noncontinuous antidepressant use is frequently observed in clinical practice despite the standard recommendation of at least 6-9 months of continuous treatment. The problem may be more serious in Chinese populations where stigmatization is common. This retrospective cohort study investigated the rate of noncontinuous antidepressant use and subsequent rate of relapse and recurrence in...

Background. Anxiety-depressive disorders (ADD) afflict almost half of patients with arterial hypertension (AH). AH aggravation by psychoemotional causes a more severe illness and rapid target organ injury, particularly, the increased stiffness central aortic pressure (CAP). However, prospects combined antihypertensive-antidepressant treatments in AH-ADD remain largely unexplored. Objectives. Th...

OBJECTIVE To examine antidepressant use before and after the diagnosis of diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS This study was a longitudinal analysis of diabetic and nondiabetic groups selected from a prospective cohort study of 151,618 men and women in Finland (the Finnish Public Sector Study, 1995-2005). We analyzed the use of antidepressants in those 493 individuals who developed type 2 d...