title: Fluoxetine in child and adolescent depression: acute and maintenance treatment.
abstract: The objective was to present naturalistic 1-year follow-up information of 96 child and adolescent outpatients with major depressive disorder who had been randomized in an 8-week double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of fluoxetine. Subjects were children and adolescents, ages 8-18 years, who were entered in a randomized clinical trial of fluoxetine. Following the acute treatment trial, treatment was not controlled. At 6 months and 1 year, the subjects and parents were interviewed using the Kiddie Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation (K-LIFE) for course of depression. Eighty-seven of the 96 subjects were followed for 1 year. Of these, 74 (85%) recovered from the depressive episode during that time (47 on fluoxetine, 22 on no medication, and 5 on other antidepressants or lithium). Twenty-nine of the subjects (39%) who recovered had a recurrence of depression during the 1-year follow-up, with 55% of these occurring within 6 months. Results of this study are similar to adult studies, with respect to response and recovery of depressive episodes. Most patients (85%) recover from the episode within 1 year, but approximately 40% have a recurrence within 12 months, which is a higher recurrence rate than in adults. Recovery was associated with younger age, lower severity of depressive symptoms, higher family functioning, and fewer comorbid diagnoses. Recurrence, which occurs both on and off medication, was difficult to predict, as there was little clinical data associated with recurrence in this population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas 75235, USA.
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Emslie
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Rush
authors.forename: W A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Weinberg
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Kowatch
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Carmody
authors.forename: T L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Mayes
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D018687:Antidepressive Agents, Second-Generation / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001007:Anxiety / Q000150:complications; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002648:Child; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy*; D018450:Disease Progression; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D004334:Drug Administration Schedule; D005260:Female; D005473:Fluoxetine / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008134:Long-Term Care; D008297:Male; D016017:Odds Ratio; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012008:Recurrence; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D016019:Survival Analysis; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D018687:Antidepressive Agents, Second-Generation; D005473:Fluoxetine