Treatment with SSRIs rather than placebo was associated with clinical improvement by the end of the first week of use .
CONCLUSIONS Treatment with SSRIs is associated with symptomatic improvement in depression by the end of the first week of use , and the improvement continues at a decreasing rate for at least 6 weeks
CONTEXT Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ( SSRIs ) are often described as having a delayed onset of effect in the treatment of depression .
However , some trials have reported clinical improvement as early as the first week of treatment .
OBJECTIVE To test the alternative hypotheses of delayed vs early onset of antidepressant action with SSRIs in patients with unipolar depression .
Use of pattern analysis to identify true drug response. A replication.
In any antidepressant study , placebo response in patients assigned active drug is a troubling source of variance . There have been few attempts to identify the patients whose conditions improve as a result of true drug effect , in contrast with improvement that is a result of nonspecific effects . In a previous report we demonstrated that true drug effect seemed to be characterized by a two-week delay in onset and persistence . We described a method of pattern analysis to identify such patients . In this report , we describe the use of pattern analysis to replicate our initial findings . Data from a new sample of 150 nonmelancholic patients support the hypothesis that true drug effect is characterized by a two-week delay in onset and persistence of improvement , once achieved . There was little evidence of the onset of antidepressant effect before two weeks . The theoretical and clinical implication s of this work are discussed
Treatment with SSRIs rather than placebo was associated with clinical improvement by the end of the first week of use .
CONCLUSIONS Treatment with SSRIs is associated with symptomatic improvement in depression by the end of the first week of use , and the improvement continues at a decreasing rate for at least 6 weeks
CONTEXT Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ( SSRIs ) are often described as having a delayed onset of effect in the treatment of depression .
However , some trials have reported clinical improvement as early as the first week of treatment .
OBJECTIVE To test the alternative hypotheses of delayed vs early onset of antidepressant action with SSRIs in patients with unipolar depression .