The researchers found out that a particular drug which is most commonly prescribed in the United Kingdom called Fluoxetine which is also known as Prozac was the only antidepressants which was found to be effective in treating the symptoms of depression.
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Another drug, venlafaxine, was associated with an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.
Most available antidepressants are ineffective for children and teenagers who have severe depression, according to a study in the medical journal The Lancet.
Researchers examined data from 34 separate studies of 14 different kinds of antidepressant medication.
[1] Amitriptyline, citalopram, clomipramine, desipramine, duloxetine, escitalopram, fluoxetine, imipramine, mirtazapine, nefazodone, nortriptyline, paroxetine, sertraline, and venlafaxine.
“Careful monitoring is important in order to identify youth who may have the emergence of suicidal thoughts, in order to provide the proper level of care to insure safety”, he said.
The antidepressants duloxetine (Cymbalta), Effexor, and imipramine (Tofranil) had the worst side effects, leading to more patients stopping the treatment compared to those on placebos.
Major depression affects about 3 per cent of children aged six to 12, and 6 per cent of teens aged 13 to 18, the researchers noted.
“Children and adolescents taking antidepressant drugs should be closely monitored regardless of the treatment chosen”, Dr Cipriani advised.
Professor Peng Xie, a member of the team from Chongqing Medical University, China, said: ‘The balance of risks and benefits of antidepressants for the treatment of major depression does not seem to offer a clear advantage in children and teenagers, with probably only the exception of fluoxetine’.
In older people, antidepressants like Prozac are believed to trigger the growth of new brain cells and new connections among them, but there is no obvious biological benefit to the developing brains of children and adolescents.
Compared with placebos and five other antidepressant medications, venlafaxine was found to increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.
The condition is normally diagnosed if a child or adolescent experiences depressive symptoms for more than 2 weeks. Professor Jureidini said doctors considering whether to prescribe antidepressants to children should assume the benefits of antidepressant drugs are oversold, and that harms are more serious than reported.
Australian child psychiatrist at the University of Adelaide Jon Jureidini said the review’s findings had “disturbing implications for clinical practice”. In general, the treatment of major depression in young people should begin with psychotherapy.
The lead author of the study, Dr. Andrea Cipriani of the University of Oxford explains that depressive disorder in young people is different to that that is found with adults.
Prozac was found to significantly benefit children and teens with major depression, though the magnitude of benefit ranged from nearly nothing to a dramatic improvement. Sertraline, known as Zoloft, was the most commonly prescribed antidepressant in the USA, but it was not the one found to be the most effective in relieving the symptoms of depression.
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The research doesn’t mean Prozac is the only antidepressant that works, Cipriani told LifeZette.
