Systematic Reviews of Drug Treatments for Depression

Follow the links below to find summaries of systematic reviews of the evidence for the effectiveness of drug treatments for depression.

Reviewed May 2008

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28 Resources Found
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Title:   Antidepressants for people with both schizophrenia and depression
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Depression is common in people with schizophrenia and is associated with substantial problems including an increased risk of suicide. Many clinicians use antidepressant drugs in addition to anti-psychotics in order to treat depression. This review ident...
Date:   Feb 2002
Title:   Antidepressants plus benzodiazepines for major depression
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   The reviewers report that a combination of benzodiazepines with antidepressants works in favour for the treatment of depression, because it decreases drop outs from treatment and it increases short-term response up to four weeks. However, there are down...
Date:   Nov 2001
Title:   Pharmacological treatment for psychotic depression
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Starting with the combination of an antidepressant and an antipsychotic, as well as starting with an antidepressant alone and adding an antipsychotic if the patient does not respond, both appear to be appropriate options for patients with psychotic depr...
Date:   Aug 2005
Title:   Low dosage tricyclic antidepressants for depression
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Practicing physicians and psychiatrists have often been criticised for administering too low a dosage of tricyclic antidepressants for people with depression. This systematic review of 39 studies (2564 participants) found that tricyclic antidepressants ...
Date:   Mar 2003
Title:   Therapies for depression in Parkinson's disease
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Parkinson's disease can lead to psychiatric as well as physical symptoms, the most common of which is depression. Oral antidepressants, electroconvulsive therapy or behavioural therapy are currently used in the treatment of depression in Parkinson's dis...
Date:   Feb 2003
Title:   Antidepressants for treating depression in dementia
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Depression is common in people with dementia and many patients are prescribed antidepressants. Current evidence offers only weak support for this practice. However, this conclusion is based on a very small number of studies with small sample sizes, pre...
Date:   Jul 2002
Title:   St John's wort for depression
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Extracts of St. John's wort (botanical name Hypericum perforatum L.) are prescribed widely for the treatment of depression. They seem more effective than placebo and similarly effective as standard antidepressants for treating mild to moderate depressiv...
Date:   Feb 2005
Title:   Active placebos versus antidepressants for depression
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   This review examined trials which compared antidepressants with 'active' placebos, that is placebos containing active substances which mimic side effects of antidepressants. Small differences were found in favour of antidepressants in terms of improveme...
Date:   Oct 2003
Title:   Electroconvulsive therapy for the depressed elderly
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Antidepressant drugs often cause side effects in elderly people, which may limit the effectiveness of treatment for depression. ECT can be an important alternative to drug treatment for depressed elderly people. This review involved searching the litera...
Date:   Feb 2003
Title:   Fluoxetine versus other types of pharmacotherapy for depression
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   The efficacy and tolerability of fluoxetine was compared to other antidepressants (tricyclics, heterocyclics and newer antidepressants) for the acute treatment of depressive illness. One hundred thirty-two randomised controlled trials were identified. P...
Date:   Aug 2005
Title:   Interventions for treating depression after stroke
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Depression is common after stroke and may be treated with antidepressant medication or psychological therapy. This review found that antidepressants appeared to lead to a reduction in scores on mood rating scales, but not to a reduction in the frequency...
Date:   Mar 2004
Title:   Psychostimulants for depression
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Depression is common and under-treated. The current first-line drug treatment for moderate or severe depression is antidepressants, but there are problems with their use. This review evaluated the evidence from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) evalua...
Date:   Feb 2008
Title:   Antidepressants versus placebo for the depressed elderly
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Seventeen RCTs were identified by the systematic literature search that met our inclusion criteria and provide suitable data for analysis. We analysed these 17 placebo trials examining the efficacy of antidepressant treatment in older people. Just under...
Date:   Oct 2000
Title:   Tricyclic drugs for depression in children and adolescents
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Tricyclic drugs do not seem useful for treating children before puberty, and are of moderate benefit at most for adolescents. Although tricyclic drugs are effective in treating adults with depression, it is not clear whether they are safe and effective ...
Date:   Feb 2002
Title:   Physical measures for treating depression in dialysis patients
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Depression is the most common psychological problem in the chronic dialysis population and it affects their physical, mental and social well-being. The aim of this review was to determine the effectiveness of physical measures (e.g. antidepressants, ele...
Date:   Feb 2005
Title:   Lithium versus antidepressants in the long-term treatment of unipolar affective disorder
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   This systematic review investigated the efficacy and tolerability of lithium compared to antidepressants for the long-term treatment of unipolar affective disorder. Eight randomised studies (reporting on 475 participants) were included in the review. We...
Date:   Aug 2006
Title:   Pharmacotherapy for dysthymia
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Many drug treatments have been proposed for the treatment of dysthymia. There is a need to know whether the different classes of antidepressants have similar efficacy. The tolerability of treatments may be even more important, since dysthymia is a chron...
Date:   Apr 2003
Title:   Lithium for maintenance treatment of mood disorders
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   This systematic review investigated the efficacy of lithium compared to that of placebo in the maintenance treament of mood disorders (unipolar and bipolar disorder). Nine randomised studies (reporting on 825 participants) were included in the review. L...
Date:   Mar 2001
Title:   Antidepressant treatment for post-natal depression
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Postnatal depression is a common disorder, which can have profound short and long term effects on maternal morbidity, the new infant and the family as a whole. It is not known whether antidepressants are an effective and safe choice for treatment of thi...
Date:   Jan 2001
Title:   Inositol for depressive disorders
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. for The Cochrane Collaboration
Description:   Inositol is a nutritional supplement that has been suggested as a treatment for depressive disorders. The reviewers found the current evidence is unclear whether or not inositol is of benefit in the treatment of depression. There are ongoing studies tha...
Date:   Oct 2003
Results 1 to 20 displayed.
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