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Sequential improvement of anxiety, depression and anhedonia with sertraline treatment in patients with major depression
Author(s) -
Boyer P.,
Tassin J. P.,
Falissart B.,
Troy S.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of clinical pharmacy and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.622
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1365-2710
pISSN - 0269-4727
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2710.2000.00302.x
Subject(s) - anhedonia , sertraline , depression (economics) , anxiety , psychology , psychiatry , antidepressant , major depressive disorder , medicine , clinical psychology , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , mood , macroeconomics , economics
Objective: To establish the therapeutic effect profile of sertraline in major depression. It was hypothesized that the antidepressant effect of sertraline showed three phases: Phase 1 where improvements in anxiety are most pronounced; Phase 2 where the greatest improvements are in depressive symptoms; and Phase 3 where the symptoms of anhedonia show the most improvement. To test this hypothesis, an 8‐week, open‐label study was conducted. Methods: Patients with a major depressive episode (DSM‐IV) and a score ≥24 on the 17‐item HAM‐D were enrolled and treated with sertraline 50–150 mg/day. The three symptomatic clusters, anxiety, depression and hedonia, were defined a priori using the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology‐Clinician rated (IDS‐C). Periods of interest were: Days 0–7 for anxiety, Days 7–21 for depression and Days 21–56 for anhedonia. Raters were blinded as to the constitution of the clusters and periods. Results: 140 patients were recruited. Improvement in the anxiety cluster of the IDS‐C was greatest during Days 0–7, whereas over Days 7–21 most improvement was observed in the depression cluster and the greatest improvement in the hedonic cluster occurred during Days 21–56. Conclusions: These preliminary results are consistent with the hypothesis that the therapeutic effects of sertraline occur in a sequential manner. The symptoms of anxiety improved first, followed by depression and then anhedonia.