Consequences of Recurrence of Major Depressive Disorder: Is Stopping Effective Antidepressant Medications Ever Safe?

Severe, J., Greden, J. F., & Reddy, P. (2020). Consequences of Recurrence of Major Depressive Disorder: Is Stopping Effective Antidepressant Medications Ever Safe?. Focus (American Psychiatric Publishing), 18(2), 120–128. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.focus.20200008

This is a really interesting article for those who have recurrent depressive disorder. What does it really mean? Well, for some people, depression doesn’t just occur once. And this isn’t just depression as a feeling, but really bad, severe, clinical depression, with really bad symptoms throughout the body and mind.

In people who have this illness, sometimes medication needs to be taken for a long time. But how long is long? This fantastic article by Dr Severe and colleagues hopes to help answer this.

The first thing when looking at an article is the authors. Unfortunately, one of the authors has been involved with pharmaceutical companies. That’s important - because the article is helping doctors prescribe. The more doctors prescribe, the more money these companies make. But, that doesn’t mean the article doesn’t have merit - just that we have to think carefully, and perhaps have backup with other less biased studies as well!

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.