February 8, 2007Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety
Reasons for antidepressant prescriptions in Canada
Population
Office-based physicians in Canada and their patients receiving antidepressant recommendations
Design
Cross-sectional
Follow-up
5 years (2000-2005)
Authors
Discussion
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Member takes
Implication
Frequent non-depression use for sleep and pain may overestimate depression treatment rates; leaves open accurate interpretation of claims-based psychiatric prescribing.
Structured PICO
P
Population
Office-based physicians in Canada and their patients receiving antidepressant recommendations
I
Intervention
Antidepressant medications (including tricyclic antidepressants and trazodone)
O
Outcome
Reasons for antidepressant treatment recommendations (psychiatric vs. non-psychiatric indications)
A significant proportion of antidepressant prescriptions are for non-psychiatric indications like sleep and pain, meaning prescription rates do not directly reflect depression treatment rates.
Cite This Study
Patten et al. (2007) studied this question.