Antidepressant discontinuation symptoms: what do the data really tell us?

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Gemma Lewis and Glyn Lewis summarise a robust systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the incidence of symptoms when discontinuing or withdrawing from antidepressants. The data suggest that 8-14% of patients will experience antidepressant discontinuation symptoms, and for around 2% these symptoms will be severe.

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Risk factors for depression relapse while on long-term maintenance antidepressant treatment

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In her debut blog, Asha Ladwa discusses a secondary analysis of data from the ANTLER trial, which investigated the clinical factors associated with relapse in primary care patients on long-term maintenance antidepressants.

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Antidepressant withdrawal: recommendations for support from people with lived experience

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Hannah Bowers summarises a study exploring the need for antidepressant withdrawal support, from 708 survey respondents with lived experience.

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Uncertainties about stopping or reducing antipsychotics as shared by families

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Amelia Talbot considers a qualitative study that explores family members’ perspectives on reducing or discontinuing antipsychotic medication.

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Antidepressant withdrawal or depression relapse? International guidelines on antidepressant discontinuation are unclear

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Adele Framer summarises a systematic review which finds that major guidelines on antidepressant discontinuation only give clinicians vague guidance on distinguishing withdrawal from relapse.

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Psychotherapy and antidepressant tapering can help people at risk of depression relapse, but more evidence needed before we can provide personalised treatment

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Jessica Scaife reviews a individual patient data meta-analysis exploring the continuation of antidepressants versus sequential psychological interventions to prevent relapse in depression.

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Expertise from outside the Academy: tapering off antidepressants

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Mark Horowitz considers a recent article written by Adele Framer, Founder of SurvivingAntidepressants.org, which describes how best to help people who are tapering off antidepressants.

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Antidepressant discontinuation and continuation: new Cochrane review finds miasma of confound

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Adele Framer, Founder of SurvivingAntidepressants.org, explores a recent Cochrane review on antidepressant discontinuation versus continuation for adults with depression or anxiety, which highlights huge uncertainty in the science about antidepressant withdrawal.

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Mindfulness to support antidepressant withdrawal: patient views and experiences

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Hannah Bowers writes her debut blog on a recent qualitative study, which explores how mindfulness-based cognitive therapy can help people stop taking antidepressants and recover from depression. This paper includes the views and perspectives of participants in the 2015 PREVENT trial.

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Preventive cognitive therapy when continuing or tapering off antidepressants

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Linda Gask is encouraged by the findings of a new high quality RCT (the DRD study), which compares preventive cognitive therapy while tapering antidepressants versus maintenance antidepressant treatment versus their combination in the prevention of depressive relapse or recurrence.

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