Effect of Antidepressants on the Treatment for Korean Major Depressive Disorder Patients
Status:
Terminated
Trial end date:
2015-07-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of antidepressants on
the treatments for non-psychotic major depressive disorder (MDD) in Korea. The study divides
MDD patients into 3 level groups according to their past histories to treatments and compares
the effectiveness of various treatment regimens at each level.
The treatment level groups are: 1) patients who have never been treated with appropriate
medications for their current depressive symptoms before, 2) who received an appropriate SSRI
(Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) once but did not respond to it, 3) who received two
types of SSRI antidepressant treatments without much effects in reducing their depressive
symptoms.
The first level group will be treated with a single SSRI antidepressant treatment. The second
and third level groups, who received SSRI treatment before, will be treated with alternative
SSRI antidepressants (switching), combined multiple SSRI treatments (antidepressant
combination), or SSRI treatments combined with mood stabilizer or anti-psychotics
(augmentation). This study does not use placebos. Patients will visit 5 times for 6 weeks at
each level for treatments. Patients will be evaluated for the severity of depressive
symptoms, functional level, and side effects at each visit. Afterwards, the investigations
will combine to monitor the patients depressive symptoms in every 3 months for the next 24
months. 18 nationwide university hospitals will participate in this study. This multi-site,
prospective, and naturalistic study for patients with depression in Korea is a main project
of 'Clinical Research Center for Depression' funded by the Ministry for Health, Welfare, and
Family Affairs (MIHWAF) in Korea for a highly-qualified research achievement.