Prozac and driving: bolster or barrier? - August 18, 2008
Posted on behalf of Katrina Charles, BA Media Fellow
Is antidepressant medication slowing down people’s reaction times, or does it actually help improve concentration in the depressed? Researchers from the University of North Dakota have found that people taking antidepressants appear to drive worse than people who aren't taking such drugs.
The psychologists used driving simulations to test the steering, concentration and scanning of 31 people who were on antidepressants, as well as 29 people not taking them. The results were presented on Sunday at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in Washington, DC.
“Participants had to make a series of common driving decisions, such as reacting to brake lights, stop signs or traffic signals while being distracted by speed limit signs, pylons, animals, other cars, helicopters or bicyclists.” (press release).
Those taking antidepressants were further divided, according to the press release, into those who scored higher and lower on a test of depression. People taking antidepressants did worse in the driving simulation than those no on medication, but people taking antidepressants who scored high on a test of depression had even more trouble concentrating and reacting behind the wheel than those who scored low on a test of depression*.
According to the BBC, the team said it could be either the pills themselves or the condition which caused the problems.
"There is obviously more work to do on this. We need a much larger study, but there certainly seems to be some sort of link” author Holly Dannewitz told the BBC.
*According to the BBC, the group taking medication was further split into those taking a low dose course and others on a high dose. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get access to the paper to find out if these divisions are one and the same, but it is possible that the group scoring high on the test of depression were also on higher doses if they were not responding well to medication.
Image: Punchstock
