Limitations of contemporary antidepressants: tolerability

Antidepressant side effects are common and persistent. They can contribute to discomfort, distress, disability, morbidity, and mortality and can compromise the efficacy of treatments. Reducing the side effect burden, either by developing treatments that have a lower incidence of side effects or by using treatment strategies that alleviate side effects, would improve the standard of care for mood and anxiety disorders. In this article, the rates of common adverse events among the newer (posttricyclic era) antidepressants are compared with those among the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most popular, contemporary first-line treatments for depression.