Anxiety does not predict response to antidepressant treatment in late life depression: results of a meta‐analysis

Abstract

In randomized, placebo-controlled trials, anxiety in late-life depression was not associated with decreased response to second generation antidepressants.

Anxiety Symptoms in Older Adults with Depression Are Associated with Suicidality

“…Further, their co-occurrence was associated with long-standing vulnerability (a personal history of anxiety or depression) to affective disorders, and a study by Steffens and McQuoid [8] showed that depressed patients with anxiety symptoms had worse short-term outcomes than patients without anxiety symptoms. These results are uncertain, as Nelson et al [9] found no significant differences between the outcomes of antidepressant treatment in depressed patients with or without anxiety. Thus, the consequences on symptom level or illness outcome of comorbid anxiety in depressed patients are to be explored.…”

“…The effect of antidepressants would be similar in depressed patients with or without anxiety, as described by Nelson et al [9]. Since the patients were hospitalized in spite of this treatment, one might speculate whether anxiolytics had an insufficient effect on anxiety symptoms, either because the dosage was inadequate or because this class of drugs had no effect.…”

Meta-analyses with industry involvement are massively published and report no caveats for antidepressants

“…No Yes Nelson 2009 In randomized, placebo-controlled trials, anxiety in late-life depression was not associated with decreased response to second generation antidepressants…”

Moderators of Outcome in Late-Life Depression: A Patient-Level Meta-Analysis

“…In mixed-aged samples, female sex was associated with better global outcome in open-label studies (34), but male sex was associated with greater drug-placebo differences (35). Open-label studies of late-life depression have found that anxious depression predicts poorer global outcome (36,37), but a trial-level meta-analysis found that anxious depression was not associated with lower drug-placebo differences in older depressed patients (38). Impaired cognition has also received attention.…”