One step closer to personalised prescribing of antidepressants: using real-world data together with patients and clinicians’ preferences

Antidepressants for many decades have been shown to be an effective treatment for depressive disorder.1 Approximately 80% of people with depressive disorder in the UK will have been prescribed an antidepressant within the first year following diagnosis.2 Indeed, about 71 million prescriptions for antidepressants were issued in the UK in 2018—nearly twice as many as the previous decade.3 However, there remain important questions around the tolerability of antidepressant medication. It is well recognised that the side effects of antidepressants can be extremely debilitating and that unwanted symptoms associated with these medications are one of the main reasons for patients discontinuing treatment.4

There are many different antidepressant drugs available, recommended by guidelines, and thus commonly used in real-world clinical practice in patients with depressive disorder across the world. A large number of different side effects of antidepressant medication from different patient populations have been reported…

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