Objective: Depression is prevalent in diabetes and is associated with increased risks of hyperglycaemia, morbidity and mortality. The effect of antidepressant medication (ADM) on glycaemic control is uncertain owing to a paucity of relevant data. We sought to determine whether the use of ADM is associated with glycaemic control in depressed patients with type 2 diabetes.
Research design and methods: A retrospective cohort study (n = 1399) was conducted using electronic medical record registry data of ambulatory primary care visits from 2008 to 2013. Depression and type 2 diabetes were identified from ICD-9-CM codes; ADM use was determined from prescription orders; and glycaemic control was determined from measures of glycated haemoglobin (A1c). Good glycaemic control was defined as A1c < 7.0% (53 mmol/mol). Generalized estimating equations were used to determine the effect of depression and ADM use on glycaemic control.
Results: Good glycaemic control was achieved by 50.9% of depressed subjects receiving ADM versus 34.6% of depressed subjects without ADM. After adjusting for covariates, depressed patients receiving ADM were twice as likely as those not receiving ADM to achieve good glycaemic control (odds ratio = 1.95; 95% confidence interval: 1.02-3.71).
Conclusions: In this retrospective cohort study of a large sample of primary care patients with type 2 diabetes, ADM use was associated with improved glycaemic control.
Keywords: Antidepressive agents; anxiety; depression; diabetes mellitus type 2; medical records; primary health care..
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