Efficacy and Safety of Citalopram in Treating Post-Stroke Depression: A Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: To evaluate the citalopram in post-stroke depression treatment, we compared its use to other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), and traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs).

METHODS: We searched databases up to May 2015. Relative risk (RR) for dichotomous data and standard mean difference (SMD) for continuous variables were analyzed using Stata 13.1.

RESULTS: The RR of the efficacy index compared to TCAs was 1.07 (95% CI 1.01-1.14, p = 0.02), and the Hamilton Depression Scale with citalopram was lower than that found with other SSRIs (SMD -0.43, 95% CI -0.85 to -0.01, p < 0.05) and TCAs (SMD -0.31, 95% CI -0.50 to -0.12, p < 0.05) in 6-week. The Treatment Emergent Symptom Scale with citalopram was lower than that with other SSRIs (SMD -0.33, 95% CI -0.56 to -0.10, p = 0.01, 1-week). The p values were all >0.05 on citalopram vs. TCMs.

CONCLUSIONS: The efficacy of citalopram maybe not very significant compared to that of other SSRIs or TCAs. But citalopram has fewer side effects especially in the first week. We, however, need further researches to compare citalopram to TCMs in future.