Treatment of Depression in Patients With Alcohol or Other Drug Dependence

Antidepressant medication exerts a modest beneficial effect for patients with combined depressive- and substance-use disorders. It is not a stand-alone treatment, and concurrent therapy directly targeting the addiction is also indicated. More research is needed to understand variations in the strength of the effect, but the data suggest that care be exercised in the diagnosis of depression-either by observing depression to persist during at least a brief period of abstinence or through efforts by clinical history to screen out substance-related depressive symptoms.