Journal of pharmacy practice
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Only 50% of depressed patients achieve remission of symptoms after 2 trials of antidepressants. Therefore one half of patients are considered treatment resistant. ⋯ Clinicians recognize there is an urgent need to find an efficacious treatment, but it becomes more difficult to decide on an appropriate therapy once a patient has failed 2 to 3 trials of antidepressants. An evidence-based review was performed to assess the efficacy and safety of several different antidepressant strategies to help the clinician decide which may be beneficial for specific patients.