No Reduction in Depressive Symptoms With Sertraline by Week 6

HealthDay News — For patients with depression, sertraline was not found to reduce depressive symptoms at 6 weeks, but it does improve anxiety, mental health-related quality-of-life, and self-reported mental health, according to a study published in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Gemma Lewis, PhD, from University College London, and colleagues examined the clinical effectiveness of sertraline in primary care patients with depressive symptoms of varying severity. A total of 655 patients were randomly assigned to sertraline (326 patients) or placebo (329 patients). The primary outcome analyzed was depressive symptoms measured 6 weeks after random assignment by the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9).

The researchers observed no evidence that sertraline led to a clinically meaningful reduction in depressive symptoms at 6 weeks, with mean 6-week PHQ-9 scores of 7.98 and 8.76 in the sertraline and placebo groups, respectively (adjusted proportional difference, 0.95; 95% CI, 0.85-1.07; P =.41). For secondary outcomes, sertraline led to reduced anxiety symptoms, better mental health-related quality-of-life, and self-reported improvement in mental health (but not physical). The investigators observed weak evidence for a reduction in depressive symptoms with sertraline at week 12.

“Our finding that sertraline affects anxiety more quickly than depressive symptoms has potential implications for understanding the mechanisms of antidepressant treatment,” the authors write. “Depressive symptoms could take longer to reduce than anxiety symptoms and some of the reduction might be explained by the earlier effects on anxiety.”

Two authors disclosed financial ties to Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft (brand name for sertraline).

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