Evidence Hub

Effect of Citalopram in Combination with Omega-3 on Depression in Post-menopausal Women: A Triple Blind Randomized Controlled Trial

S. Masoumi, F. Kazemi, Samira Tavakolian, A. Rahimi, K. Oshvandi, A. Soltanian, F. Shobeiri

Journal of clinical and diagnostic research : JCDR, 2016

60 participants · 16 citations

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Depressive disorder is a common and disabling disorder that causes high rates of morbidity and mortality. Citalopram is an antidepressant drug, of the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) class that has been used for geriatric depression since a long time ago. Prescription of omega-3 in geriatric depression has been increased recently; because of more favorable profile of their side effects. Some of the studies reported that omega-3 is effective in prevention or treatment of depressive disorders than Citalopram. However, there are contradictory studies too.

AIM

This study aimed to investigate the effect of a combination of omega-3 and citalopram in the treatment of women with post-menopausal depression.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This triple-blind randomized controlled trial was conducted on 60 women with post-menopausal depression who were referred to the Hamadan Fatemieh Hospital. After the participants completed the DSM-IV questionnaire and depression was confirmed by a psychiatrist, participants were assigned randomly into two-intervention and control groups. The patients in the control group received 20mg citalopram along with a placebo while patients in the intervention group received 20mg citalopram and 1g of omega-3. At baseline and at the end of the first, second, and fourth weeks, all of the participants answered the Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI). Descriptive statistics and t-test, repeated measures analysis of variance and Bonferroni post-hoc…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 60 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free