PMH48 Antidepressants and Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) for Patients with Depression: Analysis of Medical Expenditure Panel Survey

Abstract

Despite the empirical literature demonstrating the efficacy of antidepressant medications for treatment of depression disorder, these medications’ effect on patients’ overall well-being and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) remains controversial. This study investigates the effect of antidepressant medication use on patient-reported HRQoL for patients who have depression. A retrospective cohort study was conducted using data from the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey. Adult patients (≥18 years) with depression. The Multum drug database was used to identify patients on antidepressant medications. Subjects with complete data for the two-year follow-up in 11 consecutive cohorts (panels 10-20) were included. The HRQoL is measured using the SF-12 health survey and reported as physical and mental component summaries (PCS and MCS). The difference in differences (D-I-D) analysis was used to assess the significance of the mean difference of change on the PCS and MCS from baseline to follow-up between the two cohorts. A univariate D-I-D analyses were carried on for the combined panels and for each panel individually. Then, the robustness of the results was assessed in multivariate sensitivity analyses, controlling for the effect of significant demographical variables. On average, 17.5 million adults were diagnosed with depression disorder each year during the period 2005–2016. The majority were female (67.9%), a larger proportion of whom received antidepressant medications (60.5% vs. 51.5% of males). Although use of antidepressants was associated with some improvement on the MCS, D-I-D univariate analysis revealed no significant difference between the two cohorts in PCS (–0.35 vs. –0.34, p=0.9595) or MCS (1.28 vs. 1.13, p=0.6405). Moreover, these results were mostly consistent in the individual panels analyses, and the multivariate D-I-D analyses ensured the robustness of these results. The impact of using antidepressant medications on HRQoL were not statistically significant. These findings suggest the need for better intervention strategy for patients with depression.