A Comparison of Core Depressive Symptom Improvement with Anxiety Symptom Reduction for Depressed Patients Treated with Fluoxetine

A Comparison of Core Depressive Symptom Improvement with Anxiety Symptom Reduction for Depressed Patients Treated with Fluoxetine

Anxiety and depression are the most common coexisting psychological problems for patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Treatment with antidepressant drugs can improve the symptoms of both anxiety and depression. Therefore, first-line psychopharmacological therapies may not be much different for an MDD patient with anxiety symptoms than for an MDD patient who has anxiety disorders with the full criteria of anxiety symptoms. A meta-analysis of cognitive-behavioral therapy for youth depression was found effect sizes in anxiety symptom reduction (d = 0.39) that are less than those for depressive symptom improvement (d = 0.57). We explored the relationships between core depression symptoms and anxiety symptoms at each visit for inpatients receiving acute treatment with fluoxetine and attempted to know if depression and anxiety showed differential rates of changes. (Fluoxetine is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor as defined in the neuroscience-based nomenclature system [www.NbN.ECNP.org or www.NbN2r.com]). As the MDD patients received cognitive-behavioral therapy, we hypothesized that core depression symptoms would improve more quickly than anxiety symptoms during the acute treatment with fluoxetine.