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Depressed patients on paroxetine may experience personality changes.

By jeremyc | December 8, 2009

The Los Angeles Times (12/7, Healy) “Booster Shots” blog reported that, according to a study published in the Dec. issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) “antidepressants effect profound and rapid personality changes in those who respond to them. Compared to a group of depressed patients doing talk therapy and another taking a placebo drug,” study participants “who took the SSRI paroxetine (marketed as Paxil) and reported some depression relief had more dramatic personality changes, becoming less negative and emotional, less easily discouraged or embarrassed, and more self-confident and assertive.”

In the study of “240 adults with a major depressive disorder” divided into groups receiving paroxetine, cognitive therapy, and a placebo, “participants taking paroxetine became less neurotic and more extraverted than those receiving cognitive therapy or placebo,” HealthDay (12/7, Thomas) reported. “Extraversion, which is associated with positive emotions, is believed to help protect from depression, while neuroticism, the tendency to experience negative emotions and emotional instability, is thought to contribute to depression,” psychologist and lead author Tony Tang, PhD, of Northwestern University, explained, adding that “becoming more extraverted and less neurotic may” also “help prevent a relapse of depression.”

WebMD (12/7, Hendrick) quoted Claude Robert Cloninger, MD, “a professor of psychiatry, genetics, and psychology at Washington University in St. Louis,” who was not involved in the study, who told “WebMD that the conclusions of the new study ‘confirm earlier work showing that particular personality traits are indicators of vulnerability to depression.’” He added, “‘What this work does well is show’ that depression is ‘not just a matter of mood,’ and that SSRIs ‘are not specific just for depression.’” Reuters (12/8, Steenhuysen) and the UK’s Telegraph (12/8, Smith) also cover the story.

Topics: | Paxil |

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