Controlling acute episodes of depression

Abstract

Three 6-8 week comparative studies have shown sertraline to be an effective, safe and well-tolerated treatment for acute depressive illness. The first, a double-blind fixed-dose study, demonstrated the efficacy of sertraline over placebo; the second, a forced upward titration, active- and placebo-controlled, double-blind study, showed that sertraline was of equal efficacy to amitriptyline. The third was a double-blind comparison of sertraline and amitriptyline in elderly depressives, with the dose being increased as necessary and as tolerated. The overall results showed sertraline to be consistently superior to placebo and equivalent in therapeutic effect to amitriptyline on a number of measures including depression, anxiety, insomnia and suicidal ideation. Efficacy was found in both moderately and severely depressed patients whose primary psychiatric diagnoses included single-episode and recurrent major depression, with and without melancholia. Sertraline was also found to be effective in patients with a high baseline anxiety score on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression.