Which polypharmacy strategies are useful in treatment-resistant depression?
Polypharmacy has traditionally been discouraged in psychiatry, because of the increased risk of drug interactions and toxicity. Although mood stabilisers and antipsychotics are frequently combined in the treatment of mania, in most other circumstances polypharmacy is only used in exceptional situations.15 Because of the risk of interactions for antidepressant combinations, research into treatment of resistant depression has extensively investigated non-antidepressant drugs as adjuncts to antidepressants. The use of antidepressant combinations is a recent and as yet largely unexplored phenomenon.
