Antidepressiva afbouwen met psychotherapie?

Depression frequently occurs and antidepressant medication is often taken in the long term to prevent relapse. In the research article of Breedveldt et al. in JAMA Psychiatry (2021) is found that the relapse rate in both groups was about the same during a follow-up period of 15 months. In this commentary the clinical implications for patients with recurrent depression and remaining questions for daily practice are discussed. More knowledge is needed on prognostic factors, such as number and severity of the depressive episodes, comorbidity, treatment history (medication and psychotherapy), residual symptoms, family history, and on tapering method, to decide what fits for who. To adjust clinical guidelines seems to be too early, but preventive psychological treatment might be offered as an option in patients who want to taper their antidepressant medication.

Conflict of interest and financial support: potential conflicts of interest have been reported for this article. ICMJE forms provided by the authors are available online along with the full text of this article.