New research finds that about 20 percent of patients prescribed antidepressants stop taking them on their own without telling their doctors. The study is published in the May issue of Psychiatric Services. Characteristics of patients who tended to discontinue their medications included being younger, having a diagnosis of depressive co-morbid anxiety or substance use disorder, and being treated in a general medical setting rather than by a psychiatrist or other mental health specialist. According to lead author Hillary Samples, a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “Medication adherence is old hat, but it is still important in depression and antidepressant medication.” ”Antidepressants usually take effect after several weeks of regular medication, and adherence is particularly important during this process. Depression itself is an influential factor in medication non-adherence behaviors, so we wanted to examine the extent of self-discontinuation of antidepressants without physician advice and related influences.” For antidepressant users who did not undergo self-reported reason assessment or discontinued medication on their own for no reason, researchers compared their sociodemographic characteristics (gender, age, race-ethnicity, education level, income, and enrollment status), and clinical characteristics (diagnostic information, impairment level, type of antidepressant used, and prescriber). Data for the study were obtained from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiological Survey and included 1411 participants who had taken 1 or more antidepressants at some time in 2001, 2002, or 2003.