HRQoL varies among antidepressant users

People using antidepressants show a wide range of health-related quality of life (HRQoL), pointing to a need for healthcare professionals to take HRQoL into consideration before prescribing these medications, a recent study has found.

Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort analysis of 34.6 million patients who had reported using antidepressants at least once in 2018. Data were retrieved from the 2018 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, and HRQoL was assessed using the Veterans RAND 12-item Health Survey (VR-12).

Mental HRQoL varied widely across different types of antidepressants. Those on tricyclic agents had the highest median score at 51.6, while those on combination regimens scored the worst (median, 41.1).

Moreover, the Dwass-Steel-Critchlow-Fligner test showed that tricyclic antidepressants led to significantly better mental HRQoL than combination regimens (median difference, 10.5; p<0.0001). The same was true when confirmed to serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRI; median difference, 4.8; p=0.0048) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (median difference, 3.8; p=0.0088).

In terms of physical HRQoL, atypical antidepressants yielded the best results (median, 53.5), while combination regimens had the lowest score (median, 39.2). Atypical antidepressant regimens led to significantly better physical HRQoL than combination regimens (median, 14.3; p=0.005), tricyclic agents (median, 12.6; p=0.0175), phenylpiperazine (median, 10.3; p=0.0322), and SNRIs (median, 5.1; p=0.0274).

“The findings of the present study can benefit healthcare providers by encouraging them to take the type of antidepressant into account as a factor that affects depression management,” the researchers said.