ReviewDer Nervenarzt2025
[Can antidepressants negatively alter the long-term course of depressive disorders?]
Review in Der Nervenarzt, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe prescription of antidepressants has been steadily increasing in Germany and worldwide for decades; however, there are no indications that this leads to an improvement in public mental health.
objectiveThe question is investigated whether antidepressant pharmacotherapy, when administered over a long period of time, can adversely affect the course of depressive disorders. MATERIAL AND
methodA selective literature search was carried out in the PubMed and ScienceDirect (since 1969) databases. In addition to the keyword "antidepressants", the search included the terms "tolerance", "withdrawal", "relapse", "loss of effectiveness" and "treatment resistance".
resultsIf antidepressant treatment is stopped, the interval until the next episode of illness decreases compared to the inter-episode interval before initiation of drug treatment and the faster the antidepressant is stopped, the shorter the interval becomes. The relatively high frequency of relapses during ongoing treatment suggests that tolerance to the effects of the drugs has developed. In some cases, treatment resistance must also be considered to be a biological (counter)reaction of the brain to the intervention.
conclusionThe literature summarized in this narrative review indicates that long-term antidepressant drug treatment can have an adverse effect on the course of the disease in some patients. The undisputed benefits of acute antidepressant drug treatment are offset by potential risks when taken chronically or when discontinued, which are probably due to adaptive brain changes. This must be taken into account when initiating any antidepressant pharmacotherapy.
Indexed as
Identifiers
39992373What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.