The electronic records were phased into NHS Lanarkshire’s

mental health service over the period 2002–2005 (initially the Motherwell/Clydesdale district in 2002, Hairmyres/East Kilbride in 2004 and the Monklands district in 2005). General, rehabilitation, liaison, addiction and forensic psychiatry services in these areas all use the electronic record system. Given the fact that agomelatine is a relatively new medication which is unlikely to be initiated in primary care, we Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical are confident that this method of recruitment would have a high capture rate of all patients prescribed agomelatine in Decitabine price Lanarkshire. Patients with a diagnosis of unipolar depression were included (F32 and F33). All other International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision diagnoses were excluded. Treatment-refractory or treatment-resistant depression has been variously defined [Stimpson et al. 2002; Svenja et al. 2005] and currently there is no consensus for its definition.

It is important to differentiate between chronic depression and depression that is truly treatment Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical refractory or treatment resistant. Although it is commonly defined as a failure to respond to at least two trials Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of evidence-based antidepressant therapy at an adequate dose for an adequate duration of treatment with adequate compliance, it is generally agreed that more studies are required to further define and conceptualize this phenomenon [Berlim et al. 2007]. For the purposes of our study we defined treatment resistance in clinical terms as a history of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) or lithium prescription. This definition was chosen because both treatment options are well supported in The Maudsley as first-choice treatments for refractory depression [Taylor et al.]. Patterns of psychotropic medication Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical coprescription were noted. Effectiveness was measured by retrospective assignment of Clinical Global Impression

(CGI) scores. This Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical procedure has been used by others for examining clinical response to other psychotropic medications [Barbee et al. 2004; Centorrino et al. 2005; Shajahan et al. 2008]. CGI as a clinical research tool has been used for approximately 30 years. It has been shown to correlate well with other well known standard research drug efficacy scales, including through the HAM-D [Busner et al. 2007]. Discontinuation of treatment and hospital admission were also used as relapse indicators. Patients defined as treatment refractory were subanalysed to determine the effect of this on the relapse markers. Results Forty-eight patients were included. Thirty-eight percent were men and 25% were identified as treatment refractory (either having received ECT or lithium). Patients who had received ECT treatment had also been trialled on lithium. Rates of comorbid alcohol and substance misuse in our cohort were low. No one was prescribed agomelatine under compulsory treatment measures. Average treatment duration was 10.3 months (range 0.8–42.1 months).