There are few clinical studies about strategies used in depression in clinical practice.

Describe therapeutic strategies used in psychiatric care in patients with depression who had a suboptimal response to standard antidepressants under real-life conditions.

Non-interventional study that included a prospective cohort of outpatients diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) who needed a change on the treatment. Strategies were group as: switch of antidepressant, combination of antidepressants, augmentation or a combination of previous strategies. Follow-up period was 22-26 weeks.

364 patients were included by 58 psychiatrists, 336 were analyzed (92.3%) and 315 (86.5%) completed the follow-up.

[Strategies selected in each change]

[Relationship between no. changes and no. strategie]

Strategies more used were: switch to another antidepressant, combination of antidepressant, augmentation and multiple strategies.

Although a change of treatment was decided, frequently it was selected a strategy used in the past.

This study has been sponsored by AstraZeneca Farmaceutica Spain, SA.