Showing posts with label antidepressant transitions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label antidepressant transitions. Show all posts

Sunday, October 5, 2025

UpToDate and the Rx Transitions in Mental Health

 


For the nonphysicians reading this UpToDate is a comprehensive online resource for physicians that has essentially replaced internal medicine texts. Before it existed, most physicians who practiced adult clinical medicine could purchase a new internal medicine text every 4 or 5 years for $200-300. UpToDate (UTD) requires an annual subscription that is roughly double that cost. Many large groups of physicians provide access to their medical staff free of charge. In my last years of practice, I had an out-of-pocket subscription but I let it lapse 2 years ago. I renewed it just last week.

My rationale for the subscription comes down to several factors.  First, I need access to the best current information on complex diseases and their treatment.  The counterargument is that you can access it online – but that information is often not balanced or realistic.  UTD is carefully edited by experts in the field who often comment on what they do in their clinics.  There are several levels of editing.  Second, continuing medical education credit is available just from studying what you are interested in.  I can do a deep dive into a subject on UTD and end up with several hours of CME credit that is necessary for licensing.  The free CME credit I can access is often low in quality and requires too much time – like needing to watch an hour-long video to get 1 hour of CME credit. I really have a hard time understanding why anyone would watch or listen to a program when reading is much faster.  The only useful exception is listening while driving.  Third, there is a drug interaction program.  After extensively researching hundreds of polypharmacy combinations – I still like running those analyses.  Fourth, researching my own medical problems.  A colleague pointed out that was one of the main reasons he subscribes.  In today’s world of brief medical appointments, it is good to have some expert backup.  And if any medication is suggested I always do my own drug interaction checks and do not assume the prescribing physician or pharmacists has.  I have suggested modifications of prescriptions to my physicians on that basis.  Fifth, as a reference for my blog.  UTD references are in many of my posts.

When I renewed this time there was an option for Rx Transitions in Mental Health.  I have positively mentioned UTD in the past as a source for physicians on antidepressant tapering and transitions.  Any experienced psychiatrist has done hundreds of these transitions or tapers.  The original UTD chapters were written by senior psychopharmacology experts and they were approaches I had used many times in the past.  It was also a reminder that contrary to some recent discussions about antidepressant withdrawal – psychiatrists have been aware of these issues and have addressed them for decades.

The Rx Transitions interface is sparse. It is explicit about the intent: “to provide clinicians with information about switching antidepressant medications”.   There is a column on the left of antidepressant to be stopped SSRIs (citalopram, escitalopram, fluoxetine, sertraline), SNRIs (duloxetine venlafaxine ER) and DNRIs (bupropion ER).  After selecting the drug and the dose – a drop-down menu appears with a brief list of important information including a link to the drug interaction program.  A more expanded list of antidepressants being started pops up that includes paroxetine, milnacipran and levomilnacipran, mirtazapine, vortioxetine, and vilazodone.  Once that is checked three different schedules are provided for an immediate, rapid or standard switch.  That roughly translates to switches on day 1, week 1 or week 2 respectively.  Several paragraphs of additional information are shown and the entire summary can be printed.

I have included a graphic at the top of this post to illustrate the possible transitions. The possibilities are illustrated for the starting prescription of citalopram and ending the transition with any of the 12 antidepressants on the right side of the diagram.  That is 12 possible transitions x 3 starting doses or 36 possible transitions. If we made similar connections for all the drug and dosages on the left side of the diagram there would be a total of 346.  All would ask about immediate, rapid, or standard switches and all would show additional information about the switch is subsequent windows.

The question is whether this add on would be useful for you in your clinical practice. The first consideration is that UTD has had sections about how to do this in the main resource for years.  They are written by expert psychopharmacologists.  When I have looked at them as a reference, they back up what experienced psychiatrists do in practice.  Secondly, do you treat much depression and should you?  There has been movement in the past 20 years to suggest that antidepressant prescribing should be a function in primary care.  Both the America College of Physicians (ACP) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) have guidelines about this.  Collaborative care models have been suggested but many if not most primary care MDs have inadequate psychiatric back up. Context is very important since I doubt that getting a prescription in a primary care clinic is the same as seeing a psychiatrist. As an example – if I am discussing an antidepressant transition, I have asked that patient if they have ever stopped the medication and if they have ever had withdrawal symptoms. Some primary care physicians tell me they see minimal withdrawal symptoms because people tend to just stop the medication if they get side effects.  In that case starting a new medication is starting from scratch.

In psychiatric practice it is common to see people on the max doses of antidepressant monotherapy or polypharmacy.  In those cases, I would typically see people much more often until I was sure they had made the transition without side effects or withdrawal.  That might include initial tapering and close monitoring of depressive symptoms.  A final variable is whether the person can be counted upon to self-monitor.  I always told my patients to call me at the earliest sign of a side effect and further that I did not ever expect they would get used to side effects.  That did not prevent many from not reporting side effects until they came in for the follow up visit.  That is another reason for scheduling close follow up during these transitions.

Rx Transitions in Mental Health may be useful for physicians who have not had a lot of experience making these transitions.  It is an outline for what is possible in both the time domain and end results based on the list of medications that are used.  I think the choices could be further simplified.  For example, I do not see the utility for transitioning to paroxetine – an antidepressant with the highest withdrawal and drug interaction risk from any other medication in the diagram.  Similarly, I do not see the utility in including both citalopram and escitalopram as antidepressants to transition to, especially now that they are both generic drugs. Escitalopram is preferred because it has a lower effective dosage and better side effect profile. Using this program assumes a knowledge of antidepressants in general.  There are still many prescribed for other indications like sleep, headaches, and chronic pain.  Depression specialty clinics still prescribe tricyclic antidepressants and monoamine oxidase inhibitors that require special considerations.  There are also augmenting therapies (aripiprazole brexpiprazole, buspirone) that factor into the transitions. For the basic cases listed and with all the qualifications posted in the software – many will find the suggestions useful.

An easy thought experiment is possible to assist in the decision to get Rx Transitions.  Just look at the above diagram and think about each transition listed.  If you have done it many times before without any complications and are aware of all the considerations and precautions - you probably don't need it.  

The written chapter in UpToDate (2) is more comprehensive than the antidepressant switching tool.  It discusses concepts like antidepressant equivalent doses, pharmacokinetics, antidepressant withdrawal/discontinuation, and has links to specific classes of antidepressants, general approaches to treating depression, and treatment resistant depression.   Even at that level – psychiatric training should provide the clinical psychiatrist with what they need.  If you are a psychiatrist, I would encourage you to read this chapter first if you are considering subscribing to UTD for the psychiatric content only.  I hope that you know all this information cold including how to set up the medication transitions and monitor them.  As previously stated, there are many other reasons for psychiatrists to subscribe to UTD.

Primary care physicians will probably find this chapter to be very useful – especially if you have been nominated in your group to treat anxiety and depression.  I would recommend reading the chapter (2) first.  If your group provides access, they might also consider the switching tool but I would not consider it a necessity. If you have been using UTD for years you are probably aware of this chapter.     

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA      

 

Supplementary:

I have had UpToDate staff comment on this blog before.  If you are an UTD staff member please post a reference to the very first chapter on antidepressants transitions in UTD.  I think the original chapter was written by Ross J. Baldessarini, MD.  I would appreciate knowing how long that content has been in UTD.  


References:

1:  Rx Transitions for Mental Health: Antidepressant switching tool. In: UpToDate, Connor RF (Ed), Wolters Kluwer. (Accessed on October 2, 2025.)

2:  Hirsch N, Birnbaum RJ.  Switching antidepressant medications in adults.  In: UpToDate, Connor RF (Ed), Wolters Kluwer. (Accessed on October 2, 2025.)