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Am Fam Physician. 2024;109(5):410-416

This clinical content conforms to AAFP criteria for CME.

Author disclosure: No relevant financial relationships.

Treatment-resistant depression is defined as absence of remission despite trials of two or more antidepressant medications and can occur in up to 31% of patients with major depressive disorder. Partial response to treatment is defined as less than 50% reduction in depression-rating scores. Before diagnosing treatment-resistant depression or partial response to treatment, adherence to adequate doses and duration of medications should be confirmed. Management strategies include adding psychotherapy, switching antidepressant medication class, or augmenting with additional medications. Current guidelines recommend augmentation with a second-generation antidepressant, an atypical antipsychotic, tricyclic antidepressants, lithium, or a triiodothyronine medication as pharmacologic options. Ketamine and esketamine can also be used as augmentation for treatment-resistant depression and may help reduce suicidal ideation. Electroconvulsive therapy and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation may be effective. Pharmacogenetic testing has limited evidence and is not recommended. Nonpharmacologic therapies include psychotherapy, exercise, and focused dietary changes.

Epidemiology

Depression is among the most common psychiatric disorders in the United States. Major depressive disorder has a 12-month prevalence of 10% and a lifetime prevalence of 21%, with an average onset at 30 years of age.1 Only about one-third of patients respond to an initial trial of a first-line antidepressant medication, and a significant proportion of patients will not respond despite multiple interventions.2 Although it lacks a universal definition, treatment-resistant depression is most commonly defined as absence of remission using validated scoring tools despite trials of two or more antidepressant medications at adequate dose, duration, and adherence.3,4 This definition, however, does not account for partial response to treatment, which is defined as less than 50% reduction in depression-rating scores. When applied to treatment, these often overlapping criteria can make comparing and synthesizing studies difficult.

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