Current medical research and opinion
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To retrospectively compare the 12-month healthcare utilisation and direct medical costs associated with the use of escitalopram, generic SSRIs, and venlafaxine in patients with severe depression in the United Kingdom (UK). ⋯ Despite some limitations associated with the system of data collection in the GPRD (need to apply proxies for severity assessment and external unit costs to resource consumption), the results of this real-life study brings additional evidence of escitalopram appearing to be a cost-effective treatment for patients suffering from severe depression as diagnosed in routine practice and could be considered for first-line treatment in these patients.