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This Quick Take is a brief one on whether antidepressants are of value in the treatment of depressive symptoms in schizophrenia. This is a longstanding question because, obviously, depressive symptoms or manifestations that look like depressive symptoms are common in schizophrenia, but they can turn out to be just the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Avolition, positive speech, and flat affect look like depression. So, a careful analysis is necessary to determine whether or not this is really depression superimposed on schizophrenia or actually just part of the schizophrenia itself.
Nevertheless, we have new data from Angharad Gregory and colleagues, who conducted a meta-analysis published in the *British Journal of Psychiatry* in 2017. This large meta-analysis looked at 26 different trials of antidepressant medications in patients with schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like syndromes. So, there is an advantage here: a meta-analysis, a large sample size, and a really important clinical question: Is it
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