A new study finds that anti-depressants do work if you take the right kind

 

By: Brittany Da Silva

 

A new study has been published proving the effectiveness of anti-depressants. Surprisingly, this has been a hot topic in the scientific field, with many believing that they don’t actually work. The study, entitled “Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and network meta-analysis,” was published on February 21 in the peer-reviewed medical journal, The Lancet.

 

Although anti-depressants are commonly used in the treatment of major depressive disorder and have been for quite some time, their effectiveness as a group and the potential differences in effectiveness between individual drugs has been routinely called into question in scientific literature. This study analyzed data from 522 trials with 116,477 people, ultimately proving that all 21 of the anti-depressants involved in the trials were more effective than placebo in adults with major depressive disorder. There were differences between each drug’s effectiveness, with some only being one-third more effective than placebo, while others were over twice as effective.

 

Dr. Andrea Cipriani from the University of Oxford was the lead researcher of the study. He told the BBC, “This study is the final answer to a long-standing controversy about whether anti-depressants work for depression. We found the most commonly prescribed anti-depressants work for moderate to severe depression and I think this is very good news for patients and clinicians.” Although the findings of this study suggested that agomelatine, amitriptyline, escitalopram, mirtazapine, and paroxetine are among the most effective anti-depressant drugs, the study only took into consideration the average effect of the drug itself. When a doctor prescribes an anti-depressant to a patient, other factors including age, gender, and symptoms also play a role in choosing the right drug for each individual.

 

Although many people can benefit from taking anti-depressants, it is also important to remember that they should not be used as the first line of defence when tackling mental health issues. In many cases, talk therapy or cognitive behavioural therapy are also used in the treatment of depression, either alone or in conjunction with medications. For many people, learning how to correct their negative and distorted thinking is just as important – if not more important – than medication. There are also other studies which prove that certain people respond better to psychotherapy than to anti-depressants. Now that we know for sure that these drugs do work in the treatment of depression, the least we can do is begin to lessen the stigma that still surrounds anti-depressants and those individuals who take them.