Medication-Associated Depression: A Two and One-Half Year Follow-up of a Community Sample

A community sample of forty subjects (of a total of 5 0) were followed up an average of two and one-half years after a SADS/RDC diagnosis of depression. The group was composed of twenty-one subjects whose depressions were judged to be associated with a medical illness or medication use and nineteen without this association. There was no difference in outcome as measured by persistence or recurrence of depression when groups were defined by associated medical illness. There was a significant difference when groups were defined by association with medication use. Of the nine subjects whose depressions were associated with medication, six were still depressed at follow-up; all six had continued to use implicated “depressogenic” medications. The three who were not depressed at follow-up were no longer using the originally implicated medications. The use of depressogenic medication appears to influence the course and/or duration of depression and must be accounted for in epidemiological studies and clinical practices.