A Dutch study has found that risk of relapse is lower among depressed patients who stop taking antidepressants and participate in cognitive therapy, than it is among those patients who continue taking their medication (tinyurl.com/2c9bsd). The finding appears to contradict National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines, which state that people suffering from recurrent depression should be maintained on antidepressant medication for two years.
Claudi Bockting at the University of Amsterdam and colleagues followed for two years the progress of 172 patients with recurrent depression. After a period of recent remission, only around a quarter of the group continued to take antidepressant medication as recommended by clinical guidelines. Their rates of relapse (60.4 per cent) were actually comparable to those observed for the patients who took their medication only intermittently (63.6 per cent), and substantially higher than for the patients who stopped taking their medication altogether (27 per cent).
Moreover, among the patients who stopped taking medication, relapse rates were lowest for those who had the help of cognitive therapy (8 vs. 46 per cent), suggesting post-remission therapy could play a key role in helping prevent relapse.
Source:The British Psychological Society:
