The present study provides a sneak-peek into an online database that may help alleviate depression symptoms in millions of people.
Web-tool for Antidepressants
The study analyzed data from more than 3.6 million patients (broken into more than 16,000 subgroups) with major depression who had more than 10 million antidepressant treatments.
The collected data were then to build a Web site designed to help individuals with depression find what will work best for them.
By entering a patient’s medical history into the site, users can find similar cases in the data and receive recommendations for antidepressants based on the experience of symptom remission in other patients.
This helps summarize the experiences of patients who have multiple comorbidities, or medical conditions, with using 15 different antidepressants. Patients can even share those recommendations with their clinicians to ensure their appropriateness for their case.
“Unlike with previously published randomized studies, the remission rates in the study differed significantly based on the subgroup’s medical history. The choice of the optimal antidepressant depended on the subgroup matched to the patient’s medical history,” says Farrokh Alemi, Ph.D., professor in Mason College of Health and Human Services Department of Health Administration and Policy.
Source: Medindia
