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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Natural history of pharmacotherapy of older depressed community residents
— the MRC-ALPHA study | | Author(s) | K C M Wilson, J R M Copeland, S Taylor |
| Journal title | British Journal of Psychiatry, vol 175, November 1999 |
| Pages | pp 439-443 |
| Keywords | Depression ; Drugs ; Living in the community ; Liverpool. |
| Annotation | Depression in older people is common and has a high mortality, but effective treatment exist. This study aimed to describe drug prescribing in older community residents in relation to depression status. The MRC-ALPHA community cohort aged 65 years and over were interviewed using the Geriatric Mental State examination drug data collected at index interview and at two and four years. Findings showed that antidepressants were used by 10.9% of the depressed population. Benzodiazepines were used frequently, which indicates that it may be misprescribed for treatment of depressive symptoms. Of the antidepressant users, 59.6% took low dose antidepressants for 2 years, had a poor outcome and few drug changes. The study concluded that trends of increasing antidepressant use may have cost implications for primary care groups. (AKM). |
| Accession Number | CPA-991201228 A |
| Classmark | ENR: LLD: K4: 84B |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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