Antidepressants are widely prescribed to patients aged 65 and older for chronic pain but there is little evidence of benefits, Australian researchers say.

Their meta-analysis included 15 trials with a total of 1300 participants aged over 65 and found that the benefits of antidepressants for most chronic pain conditions were unclear.

High-certainty evidence showed that duloxetine use yielded a “very small” reduction in pain related to knee osteoarthritis (OA) over 2-4 months of use, said the University of Sydney researchers.

However, lead author Dr Sujita Narayan (PhD) said the evidence showed no benefit with two weeks of use or less and that no data were available for a year of use or more.