Efficacy of escitalopram for poststroke depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis

• Published in: Scientific reports 2022-02, Vol.12 (1), p.3304-3304, Article 3304
• Main Authors: Feng, Rong-fang, Ma, Rui, Wang, Peng, Ji, Xu, Zhang, Zhen-xiang, Li, Meng-meng, Jiao, Jia-wei, Guo, Li
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 692/617; 692/699; 692/700; Antidepressants; Citalopram; Clinical trials; Complications; Depression - drug therapy; Depression - etiology; Drowsiness; Escitalopram; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Incidence; Meta-analysis; multidisciplinary; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sensitivity analysis; Stroke; Stroke - complications; Stroke - drug therapy
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-05560-w

Depression is very common after stroke, causing multiple sequelae. We aimed to explore the efficacy of escitalopram for poststroke depression (PSD). PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Clinical trials. gov, Wan fang Data (Chinese), VIP (Chinese) and CNKI (Chinese) were retrieved from inception to May 2021. We recruited Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) which met the inclusion criteria in our study. The depression rating scores, the incidence of PSD, adverse events as well as functional outcomes were analyzed. 11 studies and 1374 participants were recruited in our work. The results were depicted: the reduction of depression rating scores was significant in the escitalopram groups and the standard mean difference (SMD) was − 1.25 ( P