Desvenlafaxine is an antidepressant inhibitor of the reuptake of norepinephrine and serotonin (SNRI). Several publications support its efficacy in reducing depressive symptoms in the short term.

The objective of this paper is to estimate the effect of short-term (12 weeks) of patients with depressive disorder treated with desvenlafaxine.

This is a prospective observational study tracking a cohort of outpatients with depressive disorder treated with Desvenlafaxine for three months. To accomplish our goal we used the Montgomery-Asberg scale performing three measurements (baseline, one month and two months after initiate the treatment). The size of our sample was 24 patients.

We found that in about 80% of patients the treatment was effective, no significant differences in relation to sex, age or treatment dose were reported. Regarding the severity of the symptoms, in the initial assessment 16% of the patients had a mild depressive episode, 70% a moderate episode and about 12% had a severe episode; while in the last evaluation, almost 46% of patients were in recovery, nearly 42% had mild symptoms, 8% moderate symptoms and only 4% had mild symptoms.

We can conclude that the treatment with Desvenlafaxine has been effective at improving in the short-term the depressive disorder, independently of gender, age and dose administered.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.