Clinician’s Opinion on Depression and Role of Escitalopram in the Management of Depression

Background: Depression is an emerging severe disorder and a serious public health problem, which can often go undetected. It is associated with many disease conditions. Increase in non-communicable diseases, suicide rate, has made its incidence to increase. These will have a negative impact on patient’s quality of life and will increase the burden of morbidity and mortality.

Objective: The aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the role of escitalopram in the management of depression by collecting clinical insights and expert opinion from Indian clinicians through a set of questionnaire.

Methodology: A cross sectional, questionnaire based study was conducted to collect opinion among doctors in the major Indian cities, about experience and satisfaction with current pharmacotherapy and role of escitalopram in the management of depression across India between June to October 2017. Convenient sampling method was used. The pretested questionnaire booklet titled CHEER (Clinicians Opinions on Depression and role of Escitalopram) study was sent to the doctors who were willing to participate. For this, physicians were requested to complete this survey and express their opinion towards the various aspect of managing depression.

Results: Totally, 177 out of 200 clinicians shared their experiences and opinion from all over India. As per survey data, 58.19% of clinicians reported that in their clinical practice, on an average, more than 15 patients were diagnosed with depression in a month. Around 75% of clinicians say that incidence of depression was more common in the female when compared to the male patients. Reports showed that incidence of depression was more common in urban educated patients (47.11%). Depression was seen more commonly in the age group of 31-40 years. About 58% of clinicians reported that counselling was as important as pharmacotherapy. The survey report suggested that more than 90% of clinicians prefer escitalopram as a first-line therapeutic agent for treating depression. More than 87% of clinicians prefer escitalopram in combination with clonazepam to treat co-morbidity of anxiety depression in their clinical practise.

Conclusion: The present survey report suggested that majority of clinicians (85%) preferred escitalopram to treat depression among the SSRIs and other antidepressants agents. Survey also showed that escitalopram has better efficacy and lesser adverse effects.