The greatest study of its sort indicates that this figure is lower than earlier estimates.
A recent study of randomised controlled trials that was published in The Lancet Psychiatry revealed that approximately 2-3% of patients will have severe symptoms, and 15% of patients will experience one or more discontinuation symptoms that are directly related to quitting the medication.
Significantly greater rates of withdrawal symptoms were reported in earlier studies, affecting 56% of all participants.
According to NHS data, 8.6 million individuals in England were predicted to have received 86 million antidepressant prescriptions in 2022–2023.
Venlafaxine, which is also prescribed in the UK, came in second for those who were exhibiting symptoms, though.
Professor Glyn Lewis of the University College London Division of Psychiatry and his colleague Dr. Gemma Lewis stated in a linked editorial that many of the studies included in the new overall analysis were small and “studied people who had not taken the antidepressants for a very long time, and often using antidepressants not commonly used now.”
However, they stated: “Despite these limitations, the results here are a substantial improvement on anything that has been published before.”
