Pharmacoeconomic evaluation of venlafaxine compared with citalopram in generalized anxiety disorder

Pharmacoeconomic evaluation aims to investigate the selection and use of drugs to make patient medication efficient, safe and economical. In this study, a pharmacoeconomic evaluation was performed to assess two treatments for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). A total of 100 outpatients with GAD were enrolled. The patients were divided into the following two groups according to treatment program: the venlafaxine group (n=50) and the citalopram group (n=50). The patients in the venlafaxine group received 75 mg of orally administered venlafaxine and 50 mg of sulpiride once a day for the first seven days and thereafter only 150 mg of venlafaxine once a day. The patients in the citalopram group received 10 mg of citalopram and 50 mg of sulpiride orally once a day for the first seven days and thereafter only 20 mg once a day. The treatment period for the two groups was three months. Follow-up was conducted at the end of weeks 2, 4 and 12 to evaluate drug efficacy, quality of life and drug side-effects. Moreover, the two groups were scored according to cost-effectiveness analysis. Using the SF-36 Scale, the quality of life score of the patients in the venlafaxine group was observed to be significantly higher compared with that of the patients in the citalopram group at the end of weeks 4 and 12 (P<0.05). The reduction rates of the Hamilton Anxiety (HAMA) scale show that the efficacy of venlafaxine was significantly better than that of citalopram by the end of week 12. The findings of this study suggest that venlafaxine is more cost-effective than citalopram in the treatment of outpatients with GAD.