| Title |
How many of 1829 antidepressant users report withdrawal effects or addiction?
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, June 2018
|
| DOI | 10.1111/inm.12488 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
John Read, Claire Cartwright, Kerry Gibson |
| Abstract |
More than 10% of adults are prescribed antidepressants annually in some countries. Recent increases in prescribing can be explained more by repeat prescriptions than new patients. This raises the question of whether antidepressants are addictive. A total of 1829 New Zealanders who had been prescribed antidepressants completed an online survey; 44% had been taking antidepressants for more than 3 years and were still taking them. Withdrawal effects when stopping medication were reported by 55%, and addiction by 27%. Paroxetine had particularly high rates of withdrawal symptoms. Only 1% of participants recalled being told about withdrawal effects when prescribed the drugs. Such high rates of withdrawal symptoms suggest that all concerned, including mental health nurses, need to help people considering antidepressants to understand that it can be difficult to withdraw from them. It will also be beneficial to closely monitor people already taking antidepressants and who are at risk of long-term usage. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 38 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 10 | 26% |
| Australia | 7 | 18% |
| United States | 2 | 5% |
| Canada | 2 | 5% |
| Sweden | 2 | 5% |
| Spain | 1 | 3% |
| Ireland | 1 | 3% |
| Switzerland | 1 | 3% |
| Unknown | 12 | 32% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 24 | 63% |
| Scientists | 7 | 18% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 6 | 16% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 3% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 65 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 65 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Bachelor | 11 | 17% |
| Student > Master | 7 | 11% |
| Other | 6 | 9% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 4 | 6% |
| Researcher | 4 | 6% |
| Other | 9 | 14% |
| Unknown | 24 | 37% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine and Dentistry | 9 | 14% |
| Psychology | 8 | 12% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 6 | 9% |
| Social Sciences | 3 | 5% |
| Computer Science | 2 | 3% |
| Other | 10 | 15% |
| Unknown | 27 | 42% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 126. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 September 2023.
All research outputs
#321,011
of 24,904,819 outputs
Outputs from International Journal of Mental Health Nursing
#8
of 1,472 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#7,288
of 335,908 outputs
Outputs of similar age from International Journal of Mental Health Nursing
#2
of 54 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,904,819 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,472 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.6. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 335,908 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 54 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.