A good overview of postnatal depression, which at a clinical level affects about 13% of women after childbirth.

Follow the link to read an interesting description/discussion of the recent study published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry on personality predictors of better response to antidepressants or cognitive therapy. High neuroticism was associated with better initial response to antidepressants. Interestingly overall response to either therapy was improved by increased openness to experience - "Out of the five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness), only one—openness—was significantly linked with treatment outcome. Specifically, higher scores on openness at pretreatment were significantly linked with less depression at treatment completion than were lower scores on this trait. Moreover, higher scores on four particular facets of openness—being artistic, dreamy and imaginative, adventurous, and unconventional—were also significantly linked with less depression at treatment completion."

The authors conclude: "Antidepressants of all types showed limited efficacy in juvenile depression, but fluoxetine might be more effective, especially in adolescents. Studies in children and in severely depressed, hospitalised or suicidal juvenile patients are needed, and effective, safe and readily accessible treatments for juvenile depression are urgently required."

This is a helpful, careful discussion about treatment of bipolar depression (especially pharmacological treatment). Well worth following the URL to access the freely viewable full text - http://tinyurl.com/3kbky5

The steady decrease in suicide rates and increase in self-harm rates in England & Wales does not seem to have been affected by major changes in antidepressant prescribing in the last few years.

Helpful discussion of this quite complex issue.

The authors conclude "SSRIs are more effective than placebo for OCD, at least in the short-term, although there are differences between the adverse effects of individual SSRI drugs. The longer term efficacy and tolerability of different SSRI drugs for OCD has yet to be established."

"The use of antiglucocorticoids in the treatment of mood disorders is at the proof-of-concept stage. Considerable methodological differences exist between studies with respect to the compounds used and the patient cohorts studied. Results in some diagnostic subtypes are promising and warrant further investigation to establish the clinical utility of these drugs in the treatment of mood disorders."

For depressed adolescents who don't respond to treatment with an SSRI antidepressant, a switch to another SSRI is as helpful as switching to venlafaxine. Adding cognitive therapy to the medication switch produces further gains.

The expert authors of this article challenge what they argue is the over-sweeping dismissal of antidepressants that Kirsch et al concluded from their recent analysis of both published and unpublished research trials.