study revealed that around 15% or one in six patients who discontinue using antidepressants experience withdrawal symptoms. Antidepressants like desvenlafaxine, venlafaxine, imipramine, and paroxetine were particularly linked to higher frequencies and severity of withdrawal symptoms compared to other commonly prescribed antidepressants. Whereas fluoxetine and sertraline had the lowest rates of withdrawal symptoms.
To further investigate how prevalent and severe withdrawal symptoms could be among patients, Henssler and colleagues carried out an analysis of 79 trials that had compiled data from 21,002 patients. Out of that, 16,532 patients had discontinued using antidepressants. And another 4,470 patients had stopped taking placebo pills. The study participants’ average age was 45 years and 72% of them were women.