{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0239206","title":"Mortality risk of antipsychotic augmentation for adult depression","abstract":"IMPORTANCE: Randomized controlled trials have demonstrated increased all-cause mortality in elderly patients with dementia treated with newer antipsychotics. It is unknown whether this risk generalizes to non-elderly adults using newer antipsychotics as augmentation treatment for depression. OBJECTIVE: This study examined all-cause mortality risk of newer antipsychotic augmentation for adult depression. DESIGN: Population-based new-user/active comparator cohort study. SETTING: National healthcare claims data from the US Medicaid program from 2001-2010 linked to the National Death Index. PARTICIPANTS: Non-elderly adults (25-64 years) diagnosed with depression who after ≥3 months of antidepressant monotherapy initiated either augmentation with a newer antipsychotic or with a second antidepressant. Patients with alternative indications for antipsychotic medications, such as schizophrenia, psychotic depression, or bipolar disorder, were excluded. EXPOSURE: Augmentation treatment for depression with a newer antipsychotic or with a second antidepressant. MAIN OUTCOME: All-cause mortality during study follow-up ascertained from the National Death Index. RESULTS: The analytic cohort included 39,582 patients (female = 78.5%, mean age = 44.5 years) who initiated augmentation with a newer antipsychotic (n = 22,410; 40% = quetiapine, 21% = risperidone, 17% = aripiprazole, 16% = olanzapine) or with a second antidepressant (n = 17,172). The median chlorpromazine equivalent starting dose for all newer antipsychotics was 68mg/d, increasing to 100 mg/d during follow-up. Altogether, 153 patients died during 13,328 person-years of follow-up (newer antipsychotic augmentation: n = 105, follow-up = 7,601 person-years, mortality rate = 138.1/10,000 person-years; antidepressant augmentation: n = 48, follow-up = 5,727 person-years, mortality rate = 83.8/10,000 person-years). An adjusted hazard ratio of 1.45 (95% confidence interval, 1.02 to 2.06) indicated increased all-cause mortality risk for newer antipsychotic augmentation compared to antidepressant augmentation (risk difference = 37.7 (95%CI, 1.7 to 88.8) per 10,000 person-years). Results were robust across several sensitivity analyses. CONCLUSION: Augmentation with newer antipsychotics in non-elderly patients with depression was associated with increased mortality risk compared with adding a second antidepressant. Though these findings require replication and cannot prove causality, physicians managing adults with depression should be aware of this potential for increased mortality associated with newer antipsychotic augmentation.","journal":"PLoS ONE","year":2020,"id":103466,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":25,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9589,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":504256,"name":"T. Scott Stroup","orcid":"0000-0002-3123-0672","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":20809,"name":"Christoph U. Correll","orcid":"0000-0002-7254-5646","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":281090,"name":"Soko Setoguchi","orcid":"0000-0002-1583-752X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":382875,"name":"Brian L. Strom","orcid":"0000-0001-5750-4232","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":505362,"name":"Cecilia Huang","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":504257,"name":"Zhiqiang Tan","orcid":"0000-0003-1780-6839","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":322704,"name":"Stephen Crystal","orcid":"0000-0003-0366-7583","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":262362,"name":"Mark Olfson","orcid":"0000-0002-3958-5662","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":504255,"name":"Tobias Gerhard","orcid":"0000-0002-8598-5771","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":40,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:42:48.999009Z","pmid":"32997687","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}