Early Onset of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Antidepressant Action

Abstract

Conventional wisdom suggests that the therapeutic effects of antidepressant agents, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), take 2 to 3 weeks or more to become evident.¹ There are a variety of elegant explanations for this delay, although there is no consensus.^2-4 Clinical experience shows that a proportion of patients report improvement in symptoms earlier than this, but this improvement is often ascribed to a placebo effect.⁵