Clinical Characteristics and Psychotropic Prescribing Patterns Associated with impaired Concentration in Asians with Depressive Disorders: The REAP-AD Study

Abstract

The Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns for Antidepressants (REAP-AD) study aimed to survey and review antidepressant prescribing patterns in different clinical settings in Asian countries/areas. The REAP-AD study collected comprehensive data for psychiatric patients prescribed antidepressants in 10 Asian countries/areas during the period from March to June 2013. Depressive disorders have been an important issue closely associated with ill-health and disability in the realm of mental health. Impaired concentration was found to be a consistent symptom in depressive disorders regardless of clinical course, and a predictor of poor treatment outcome. In this work we aimed to identify clinical characteristics independently associated with impaired concentration in patients with depressive disorders, using data from the REAP-AD study. A total of 336 depressive disorder patients with impaired concentration and 786 depressive disorder patients without impaired concentration were recruited from 40 centers in 10 Asian countries/areas. A binary logistic regression model was fitted to identify the independent correlates of impaired concentration in patients with depressive disorders. After adjusting the effects of covariates, the binary logistic model showed that impaired concentration was independently associated with higher rates of loss of interest (P < 0.0001), fatigue (P < 0.0001), low self-confidence (P < 0.0001) and appetite disturbance (P < 0.0001) and with a lower rate of adjunctive antipsychotic prescription (P = 0.007). Our findings suggest that impaired concentration and its associated depressive symptom profiles constitute a unitary depressive symptom cluster that is also an intervening variable for poor social function.

Network analysis of the depressive symptom profiles in Asian patients with depressive disorders: Findings from the Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns for Antidepressants (REAP‐AD)

“…As described elsewhere, in the REAP‐AD survey, 2470 psychiatric patients who had been treated with antidepressants were recruited from 10 Asian countries or special administrative regions – China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand – during the survey period from March to June 2013. Antidepressants were defined as psychoanaleptics, which were coded as N06A in the Anatomical and Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification system.…”

“…Moreover, it has been suggested that the patho‐facilitative or patho‐reactive influences of specific cultures can result in international differences in clinical manifestations of depressive disorders . Hence, using data from the Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns for Antidepressants (REAP‐AD) survey, which is one of the largest international research collaborations within Asia, we aimed to estimate the network structures of depressive symptoms and evaluate the geographic regional differences in these network structures among Asian patients with depressive disorders.…”