SEX, STRESS AND SLEEP

One of the main sequelae to prolonged stressful situations is the deve lopment of depressive illness, which is usually accompanied by sexual dysfunction, insomnia and anxiety. The SSRIs that are used to treat de pression may themselves aggravate these symptoms further and so delay recovery from the 'stress-illness vicious circle'. These problems woul d appear to be considerably less with the newer sedative antidepressan t drugs, such as nefazodone and mirtazapine. In a small (N = 14) open- label study, data on these factors was recorded before and after 5-wee ks treatment with mirtazapine. There were highly significant improveme nts on the Hamilton Depression and Anxiety rating scales and also on t he Sexual Sti ess and Sleep Problems items of the Wheatley Stress Prof ile (WSP) (p = 0.0001 respectively). (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.