Introduction: Depressive disorder is a common and disabling disorder that causes high rates of morbidity and mortality. Citalopram is an antidepressant drug, of the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) class that has been used for geriatric depression since a long time ago. Prescription of omega-3 in geriatric depression has been increased recently; because of more favorable profile of their side effects. Some of the studies reported that omega-3 is effective in prevention or treatment of depressive disorders than Citalopram. However, there are contradictory studies too.
Aim: This study aimed to investigate the effect of a combination of omega-3 and citalopram in the treatment of women with post-menopausal depression.
Materials and methods: This triple-blind randomized controlled trial was conducted on 60 women with post-menopausal depression who were referred to the Hamadan Fatemieh Hospital. After the participants completed the DSM-IV questionnaire and depression was confirmed by a psychiatrist, participants were assigned randomly into two-intervention and control groups. The patients in the control group received 20mg citalopram along with a placebo while patients in the intervention group received 20mg citalopram and 1g of omega-3. At baseline and at the end of the first, second, and fourth weeks, all of the participants answered the Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI). Descriptive statistics and t-test, repeated measures analysis of variance and Bonferroni post-hoc test was used to analyse the data.
Results: The depression score was 6.1±2.41 in intervention and 25.22±10.04 in control group, four weeks after intervention. A decreasing trend was observed in the mean depression scores of the intervention group during the study. Using repeated measures analysis of variance, a significant difference was observed between the mean depression scores of the two groups at the four measurement time-points (p<0.001). The mean depression scores of the intervention group were significantly lower than the control group either two weeks (p< 0.001) or four weeks after the treatments (p< 0.001).
Conclusion: Using omega-3, can reduce the severity of depression in post-menopausal women.
Keywords: Antidepressant drug; Depressive disorders; Menopause.