Patterns of improvement in depressive symptoms with fluoxetine treatment

By definition, patients who respond to antidepressant treatment show significant improvements in most, if not all, of their depressive symptoms. We assessed the patterns of change in depressed outpatients treated openly with fluoxetine 20 mg/day for 8 weeks. We studied 62 depressed outpatients with major depressive disorder who showed full response following fluoxetine treatment. Analysis of the data revealed that the symptoms that tended to improve relatively early during treatment were suicidal ideation, excessive guilt, and lack of appetite. Our tentative conclusion from this pilot study was that symptom improvement tends to occur in both cognitive and neurovegetative areas early in treatment as well as later.