Characteristics of patients with anxiety disorder without selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor prescription over a two-year period of pharmacotherapy

Abstract

Introduction: Pharmacotherapy such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors is recommended for the treatment of anxiety disorders. Although there are patients with persisted symptoms of anxiety disorders who are treated with monotherapy of benzodiazepine anxiolytics without SSRIs, the characteristics of these patients are unclear. In the present study, we investigated the characteristics of patients with persisted symptoms of anxiety disorder without SSRI prescription.

Methods: From a prescription dataset covering 2018 and 2020, the prescriptions of 243 patients with anxiety disorder were analyzed. Patients were classified into two groups: SSRI non-prescription and prescription groups.

Results: The SSRI non-prescription group had a higher ratio of females than did the SSRI prescription group (60.1% vs. 44.6%, respectively, p = 3.12 × 10^-2 ), but statistically not significant after the Bonferroni correction. No significant differences in age, body mass index, or duration of outpatient visits were found between groups. Among the independent variables, sex (female) was the only variable identified that predicted SSRI non-prescription.

Conclusion: The present study showed that among patients with anxiety disorders, sex (female) was the only variable that predicted SSRI non-prescription.

Keywords: SSRI; anxiety disorder; anxiolytics; benzodiazepines; prescription.

FIGURE 1

STROBE flow diagram. BZ, benzodiazepine; SSRI, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.