Overview

Major depressive disorder (MDD) can have a significant impact on your patients’ lives. However, MDD is not just about feeling “down.” It’s a life-threatening condition that is a leading cause of suicide. Fortunately, there are a variety of effective therapies; however, many patients may experience an inadequate response to treatment and others may have experience anhedonia or reduced emotional responsiveness (ie, emotional blunting) associated with both selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors/serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs/SNRIs). Do you have questions about the symptoms of emotional blunting or differentiating emotional blunting from inadequate treatment response? What about assessing the effectiveness of different therapies? Access this innovative “cinemeducation” format in which representative patient and clinician dialogues come to life to model best practices. Find out how to use measurement-based care for tracking symptoms of depression; assess and manage treatment-related emotional blunting; and involve patients in shared decision making. Enhance your clinical practices and help your patients find the light again.

This activity is intended for psychiatrists, primary care providers, and other members of the 
multidisciplinary team managing patients with depression.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common condition with a wide range of symptoms. Research has shown that medication alone or in combination with other therapeutic modalities is effective in improving depression. However, many patients do not receive adequate care and, despite the availability of a wide array of antidepressants to treat depression, up to 50% of patients with MDD fail to respond to an initial course of antidepressant therapy and more than 75% experience relapse. This failure to achieve and maintain remission compromises patients’ quality of life and ability to function, as well as other health outcomes including cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, which people with depression have a 40% higher risk of developing. To combat these trends, clinicians and patients must collaboratively establish treatment goals considerate of cognitive, physical, and emotional endpoints. In addition, when tailoring treatment to individual patients, it is important to consider the potential for patients to suffer from a reduced ability to experience and anticipate pleasure (anhedonia) and from reduced emotional responsiveness – either positive or negative (ie, emotional blunting)—both of which are common in patients with MDD. It is particularly noteworthy that emotional blunting, beyond being a symptom of MDD, has also been linked to some antidepressant treatments; evidence indicates that approximately 50% of MDD patients treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors/serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs/SNRIs) suffer emotional blunting. Therefore, it is vital that clinicians are able to determine to what extent emotional blunting is a residual symptom of depression or an adverse event stemming from antidepressant treatment.

Upon completion of this activity, learners will be able to:
• Describe the burden of emotional blunting in patients with MDD
• Review the latest research exploring how and to what extent different therapies may affect emotional blunting in patients with MDD
• Individualize treatment strategies for patients with MDD taking in to account the possible effects of emotional blunting in patient response to therapy
• Employ measurement-based care (MBC) and shared-decision making to assess emotional blunting as part of evaluation of patient response to treatment

Provided by the Academy for Continued Healthcare Learning (ACHL).

Supported by an educational grant from Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc.