title: Gender-based differences in the antidepressant treatment of patients with depression in German psychiatric practices.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Depression is recognized as the leading cause of disability in the world. Our goal was to compare treatment initiation in men and women treated in German neuropsychiatric practices after diagnosis of depression.
  
  
  METHODS
  Patients aged between 18 and 80 first diagnosed with depression between 2010 and 2013 were identified by 223 psychiatrists in the IMS Disease Analyzer database. Patients who had received antidepressant prescriptions prior to the index date were excluded. The main outcome measure was the initiation of antidepressant drug therapy in men and women within three years after index date in three subgroups of different severity (mild, moderate and severe depression).
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 35,495 men and 54,467 women were included in this study. After 3 years of follow-up, 77.3% of men and 78.5% of women diagnosed with mild depression (p-value=0.887), 89.2% of men and 90.7% of women with moderate depression (p-value=0.084), and 88.6% of men and 89.5% of women with severe depression (p-value=0.769) had been treated. No association was found between the chances of treatment initiation after diagnosis of depression and gender. Finally, patients with moderate and severe depression were more likely to receive therapy than those with mild depression. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and tricyclic antidepressants were the two most commonly prescribed families of drugs in this study (SSRIs: 34.5% to 44.6%, and TCAs: 19.1% to 26.9%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Gender did not impact therapy initiation in depressed patients. Further studies are needed to identify other potential factors involved.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Louis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jacob
authors.affiliation: IMS Health, Epidemiology, Frankfurt/Main, Germany.
authors.forename: Karel
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kostev
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000928:Antidepressive Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015995:Prevalence; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D040841:Resource Allocation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017678:Sex Distribution; D063507:Sexism / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D000928:Antidepressive Agents
keywords: depression; female patients; gender