Safety and tolerability of antidepressants: weighing the impact on treatment decisions.

Overview

Major depressive disorders affect an estimated 23 million U.S. adults per year. While antidepressants are effective in improving the symptoms of depression, side effects are an undesirable outcome of treatment and can have an impact on patient adherence to treatment. Compared with older drugs, selective serotonin reup-take inhibitors, serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, and other antidepressants have more benign side effect profiles. Research continues to elucidate new agents that may combine efficacy with a minimum of side effects, as well as new methods of predicting individual response to particular antidepressants.