Developmentally Informed Pharmacotherapy for Child and Adolescent Depressive Disorders

This article reviews evidence-based pharmacotherapy for children and adolescents with depression. Several randomized controlled trials (RCTs) support the use of fluoxetine for the treatment of childhood and adolescent depression as well as escitalopram in the treatment of adolescent depression. To date, one RCT has demonstrated the effectiveness of sertraline or citalopram for the treatment of major depressive disorder in youth. Only a small number of RCTs for depression have included children, and none of these trials were adequately powered to detect differences in the efficacy of medication between children and adolescents.