Clinical practice guideline recommendations on tapering and discontinuing antidepressants for depression: a systematic review.

Current major clinical practice guidelines provide little support for clinicians wishing to help patients discontinue or taper antidepressants in terms of mitigating and managing withdrawal symptoms. Patients who have deteriorated upon following current guidance on tapering and discontinuing antidepressants thus cannot be concluded to have experienced a relapse. Better guidance requires better randomised trials investigating interventions for discontinuing or tapering antidepressants.