Quality of life in depressed patients

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Abstract
Quality of life is one of the effectiveness measures used to assess the impact of medical interventions. This paper describes results of a study on quality of life of depressed patients treated with fluoxetine or tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) such as amitriptyline and clomipramine. The quality of life of patients was measured using the Short Form (SF-36), a widely accepted and validated questionnaire. Depressed patients (n = 845) were observed using a cross-sectional design. Patients who had been under treatment for at least 1 week (amitriptyline, clomipramine or fluoxetine) and met the DSM-III-R criteria for major depressive disorder were included. Similar sociodemographic profiles were found across treatment groups. However, more patients with a history of depression were found in the TCA vs the fluoxetine group. Compliance was dramatically lower and length of treatment higher for TCA-treated groups. Controlling for confounding variables, the TCA-treated group also scored lower than the fluoxetine-treated one for general health perception, and social and physical functioning. These differences are not explained by symptom severity since Hamilton scores were similar across treatment groups. These results suggest that fluoxetine treatment may be associated with higher levels of social functioning and health perception than usual TCA treatment.

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