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Prescribing patterns of psychiatric drugs in major depressive disorder – Findings from a large European multicenter, cross-sectional study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2020

M. Dold ,
A. Kautzky ,
L. Bartova ,
U. Rabl ,
D. Souery ,
J. Mendlewicz ,
A. Serretti ,
S. Porcelli ,
J. Zohar  and
S. Montgomery
...Show all authors
M. Dold
Affiliation:
Medical University of Vienna, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Vienna, Austria
A. Kautzky
Affiliation:
Medical University of Vienna, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Vienna, Austria
L. Bartova
Affiliation:
Medical University of Vienna, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Vienna, Austria
U. Rabl
Affiliation:
Medical University of Vienna, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Vienna, Austria
D. Souery
Affiliation:
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Psy Pluriel Centre Européen de Psychologie Médicale, Bruxelles, Belgium
J. Mendlewicz
Affiliation:
Free University of Brussels, School of Medicine, Bruxelles, Belgium
A. Serretti
Affiliation:
University of Bologna, Department of Biomedical and NeuroMotor Sciences, Bologna, Italy
S. Porcelli
Affiliation:
University of Bologna, Department of Biomedical and NeuroMotor Sciences, Bologna, Italy
J. Zohar
Affiliation:
Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Psychiatric Division, Tel Hashomer, Israel
S. Montgomery
Affiliation:
University of London, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
S. Kasper
Affiliation:
Medical University of Vienna, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Vienna, Austria

Abstract

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Introduction

The multicenter, cross-sectional survey summarizes the current prescription patterns of psychopharmacological medications in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) treated in European university psychiatric centers.

Methods

The study included a total of 1181 MDD patients who were recruited in 9 academic sites across 8 European countries. Socio-demographic, clinical, and psychopharmacological characteristics were collected within a detailed clinical interview and the current depressive symptom severity was measured by the Montgomery and Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). Symptom reduction during the present MDD episode was analyzed by calculating retrospective MADRS scores. Descriptive statistics, analyses of variance (ANOVAs), and Spearman correlation analyses were performed to examine the impact of various features on the applied pharmacological strategies.

Results

Regarding first-line antidepressant medication, the most frequently prescribed drug classes were selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) (53.4%), serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) (23.6%), noradrenergic and specific serotonergic antidepressants (NaSSAs) (8.2%), tricyclic antidepressants (TCA) (5.1%), and the melatonergic antidepressant agomelatine (5.0%). The most commonly used individual antidepressants were escitalopram (18.4%), venlafaxine (15.2%), sertraline (12.9%), paroxetine (9.1%), mirtazapine (8.2%), duloxetine (7.0%), and fluoxetine (6.5%). Among the patients, 59.4% were treated with polypsychopharmaceutical medications (mean: 2 drugs) and for the number of individual drugs, we found a significant correlation with the present MADRS total score and the MADRS total score change during the current depressive episode.

Conclusion

Consistent with surveys investigating primarily municipal psychiatric treatment centers, we could replicate the observation that SSRIs are the most commonly used antidepressants in MDD for the first time for European university centers.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Type
e-Poster Walk: Psychopharmacology and pharmacoeconomics and psychoneuroimmunology
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 41 , Issue S1: Abstract of the 25th European Congress of Psychiatry , April 2017 , pp. S367
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2017
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