Income may influence antidepressant response

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Pooled data from published studies suggest that adults from low-income neighborhoods are less likely to respond to antidepressant medication and more likely to be suicidal than those living in higher income neighborhoods.

"This is a small, preliminary study, but it does suggest that the social worlds in which people live influence the effectiveness of antidepressant treatments even in the context of clinical trials in which all participants receive the same high quality care," Dr. Alex Cohen said in an interview with Reuters Health.

Cohen, from Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues assessed the relationship between socioeconomic status and treatment response in 248 depressed adults participating in trials of the antidepressants Pamelor (nortriptyline) or Paxil (paroxetine) combined with interpersonal psychotherapy.

They report, in the Archives of General Psychiatry, that people from low-income neighborhoods took longer to respond to the medication compared with those living in middle- and high-income areas. The median times to response were 9.1, 7.0, and 7.4 weeks, respectively.

Middle-income residents were significantly more likely to respond to antidepressant treatment than low-income residents, the investigators found.

Compared to the low-income group, those in the middle- and high-income groups were significantly less likely to report having suicidal thoughts.

SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry January 2006.