BACKGROUND: Short-term discontinuation of @entity146 medications is required in many types of research studies. Yet there are few studies of the clinical impact of psychotropic discontinuation. We studied the impact of a short-term medication washout in unipolar @entity308 @entity1 consecutively admitted to hospital for neuroimaging and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) studies. METHOD: @entity1 (n=51) with @entity308 who were taking antidepressant or mood stabilizing medication at or within 1 week of admission, and who had not been responding satisfactorily, were assessed for severity of psychopathology within 1 week of hospital admission and 41 of the group were reassessed following an approximately 2-week medication washout. RESULTS: On average, @entity1 remained stable during the washout or improved on clinical measures. No serious adverse clinical changes were observed. LIMITATIONS: Potential sample bias, small sample size. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that similar studies can be conducted without causing undue worsening of symptoms. The benefit of medication washout may be related to the fact that many of the @entity1 had been responding poorly to the medication they were taking. There is a need for further research on the effects of medication washout, for example in outpatients or those who are responding well to treatment, but have intolerable side-effects.

Clinical impact of a 2-week psychotropic medication washout in unipolar XXXX inpatients.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['Patients', 'patients'] @entity308 :: ('MESH:D003866', 'Disease') :: ['depressed', 'unipolar depression'] @entity146 :: ('MESH:D001523', 'Disease') :: ['psychiatric']
@entity308 :: (MESH:D003866,Disease) :: ['depressed']
