Quitting antidepressants can be tricky

Our new study shows the longer someone takes to taper off their antidepressants, the more likely they are to successfully quit.

By Maryanne Demasi PhD and Peter C Gøtzsche, DrMedSci MD

Quitting antidepressants is challenging for about half of people who take them, particularly if they’ve been medicated for prolonged periods. Danish data show that one third of people taking antidepressants continue to do so for the next decade.

For some it can take over six months to slowly taper off the pills, for others, they struggle to stop entirely. That’s because these psychoactive drugs alter the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain making it difficult for the brain to readjust to a drug-free state.