Abstract
Depression and depressive symptoms have a relatively poor prognosis. Prophylactic maintenance treatment with antidepressants has only been recommended recently. Most studies of chronicity and relapses have been carried out with initially hospitalized patients or with patients attending psychiatric treatment facilities. All incident ambulatory antidepressant-treated patients (n=456) in a Swedish community during 1980–84 were identified. They were followed up for 8 years after the index date. Survival analysis was used to study chronic antidepressant use. Concomitant use of other prescription drugs was studied using generalized estimating equations regression analysis. More than half of the patients had one or several periods of antidepressant treatment after the index year. The relapse rate was between 23% and 33% for each year after the index year. Eleven per cent had continuous use every year after the index year. Patients with one or more relapses had a significantly higher number of other prescription ...
Published Version
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