The 2025 Robert Kerwin Prize was awarded to Dr Annie Jeffery for her paper on “Association between polypharmacy and depression relapse in individuals with comorbid depression and type 2 diabetes: a UK electronic health record study”. Dr Jeffery will present her findings from a cohort study using primary care data (n=48 001) from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) from years 2000 to 2018. Restarting antidepressants in the year after discontinuation was found to occur commonly, indicative of relapse, and the rate increased as polypharmacy and duration of previous treatment increased. There was no interaction between polypharmacy and previous antidepressant duration. The implications of these findings will be discussed.
The prize-winning presentation will be supported by two other speakers, presenting their work from related areas. Dr Claire McDonald will present on multiple long-term conditions (MLTC) and the enhancement of care outcomes, exploring how an understanding of the biological mechanisms of ageing might improve our understanding of the mechanisms and causes of many long-term conditions, including depression. She will discuss strategies to enhance healthcare delivery for people living with long-term conditions and how these approaches could improve outcomes for individuals living with both long-term conditions and depression. Dr Tiago Costa will talk about cardiovascular mortality and its associations with depression, co-morbidities and antidepressant treatment. He will present his systematic review and meta-analysis which found that depression appeared to increase the risk of long-term cardiovascular mortality in the general population, in people with co-morbid cardiovascular disease or co-morbid diabetes. The similar risk ratio across the populations studied suggests the increased risk of cardiovascular mortality could be driven by a direct effect of depression. Antidepressant treatments appeared to reduce the risk of cardiovascular mortality but only when prescribed to patients with known depression, suggesting the risk is driven by effects on mood.
Learning objectives
By attending this session you will:
- Understand the relationship between physical and mental health conditions
- Recognise the importance of multi morbidity and polypharmacy in psychaitry
- Appreciate the power of large scale cohort data.
Speakers
Chair: Dr David Cousins, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne
Dr Annie Jeffery, University College London, London
Dr Claire McDonald, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne
Dr Tiago Costa, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne
Availability
This webinar is part of the Congress webinar 2025 package. If you attended all four days of Congress, you will have access to these as part of your Congress package. Otherwise the Congress webinar 2025 package can be purchased below.
