Antidepressants: Evidence on safe discontinuation is lacking, concludes Cochrane review

Good quality evidence is urgently needed to inform doctors on how to discontinue antidepressants safely and effectively, a Cochrane review has highlighted.1

An international team of researchers assessed randomised controlled trials comparing approaches to discontinuation and continuation of antidepressants in patients who had used them for depression or anxiety for at least six months. But the team reached no firm conclusions about the effects and safety of the approaches reviewed because of the low certainty of evidence from the existing studies.

Ellen Van Leeuwen, lead author from the Clinical Pharmacology …