Using antidepressants doesn’t make people happier in the long run , concludes a large new study published in the journal PLOS ONE. It is known that depression can have a marked impact on “health-related quality of life”, that is, a concept that affects a person’s physical, mental, emotional and social function.
Antidepressants are prescribed daily, but we know very little about how well they work in the long term, and especially how they affect overall quality of life.
Experiment
The researchers followed 17.5 million American adults with depression over 10 years, about half on antidepressant medication and half off. Patients taking antidepressants did not have a significantly better quality of life compared to depressed people not taking the pills, the analysis found.
Patients taking antidepressants included selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac , serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors such as Effexor , and older antidepressants such as clomipramine and phenelzine.
The researchers, using data from the 2005-2015 United States Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), a large longitudinal study tracking the health services Americans use, assessed the mental and physical quality of life of participants with a survey about the subjects’ physical health, energy levels, mood, pain, and ability to perform daily activities, among other things.
Results?
During the duration of the study, there were an average of 17.47 million adult patients diagnosed with depression each year with two years of follow-up, and 57.6% of these were treated with antidepressant medications.
No significant differences were found between the two groups, suggesting that antidepressant medications may not improve long-term quality of life, although the study was unable to analyze any variable subtype or severity of depression separately. The authors say that future studies should investigate the use of non-pharmacological depression interventions used in combination with antidepressants.
“Although we still need our patients with depression to continue using their antidepressant medications, long-term studies are needed to assess the real impact of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions on the quality of life of these patients. That said, the role of interventions Cognitive and behavioral factors in the long-term management of depression should be further evaluated in an effort to improve the ultimate goal of care for these patients: improving their overall quality of life,” the researchers explain.
This doesn’t mean that antidepressants don’t work, but these findings suggest that their ability to improve long-term quality of life may be limited.
Study limitations
The study has certain limitations. On the one hand, the experts did not analyze separately different subtypes or different levels of depression, nor was the effectiveness of the different types of antidepressants outlined.
Reference: Omar A. Almohammed, Abdulaziz A. Alsalem, Abdullah A. Almangour, Lama H. Alotaibi, Majed S. Al Yami, Leanne Lai. Antidepressants and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) for patients with depression: Analysis of the medical expenditure panel survey from the United States. PLOS ONE, 2022; 17 (4): e0265928 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265928
