People who quit antidepressants slowly, by gradually decreasing the dose, are much less likely to suffer a relapse, according to
Baldessarini et al. in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
They describe a large sample (400) of patients from Sardinia, Italy, who had responded well to antidepressants, and then stopped taking them. The antidepressants had been prescribed for either depression, or panic attacks.
People who quit suddenly (over 1-7 days) were more likely to relapse, and relapsed sooner, than the ones who stopped gradually (over a period of 2 weeks or more).
This graph shows what % of the patients in each group remained well at each time point (in terms of days since their final pill.) As you can see, the two lines separate early, and then remain apart by about the same distance (20%) for the whole 12 months.
What this means is that rapid discontinuation didn't just accelerate ...
