The aim of this study was to investigate antidepressant use in a nationwide cohort of persons with incident rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in 2000-2007 in Finland.
Register data from the Social Insurance Institution of Finland were used to evaluate antidepressant use in = 50-year-old incident RA patients (n = 10,356) and the same-age general population.
Of the RA patients, 10.0% (n = 1034) had used antidepressants during the year preceding RA diagnosis. The cumulative incidence of antidepressant initiations after RA diagnosis was 11.4% [95% confidence interval (CI) 10.0-12.9] for men and 16.2% (95% CI 14.9-17.5) for women at the end of follow-up (mean 4.4 years). Female gender [age-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 1.39, 95% CI 1.21-1.60] and increasing number of comorbidities (p for linearity