A comparative study of Sertraline vs Amitriptyline in the treatment of depression with somatic symptoms

Objective:To evaluate the efficacy of Sertraline in the treatment of depression with somatic symptoms.Methods:A total of 98 outpatients who had ever come to our hospital from.Jan.of 2006 to Jan.of 2008 were divided into two groups randomly.One group(49 cases) were treated with Sertraline and the other group(49 cases) were treated with Amitriptyline for eight weeks.The clinical effect was measured with Hamilton depression rating scale for depression(HRSD) and Clinical Global Impression(CGI).The side effect were assessed by the Treatment Emergent Symptom Scale(TESS).Results: The significant improvement rate of Sertraline was 65.9% and the improvement rate of Amitriptyline was 62.8%.The efficacy of Sertraline was similar to Amitriptyline.There were significant difference between the scores of HRSD after treatment for two and four weeks(P0.01).The reducing score rate of Sertraline was superior to Amitriptyline.The side effect rate of Sertraline was(18.1%) lower than the rate of Amitriptyline(35.19%).Conclusions: Sertraline is a principal drug with good efficacy,high safety and less side effects suitable for widely applied to the treatment of depression with somatic symptoms.