Abstract

INTRODUCTION The currently accepted psychopharmacological treatment for generalized anxiety disorder in adults is associated with adverse effects that threaten its acceptability. In this line, vortioxetine has been proposed as an alternative with a better profile of adverse effects in the treatment of said pathology. METHOD We conducted a search in Epistemonikos, the largest database of systematic health reviews, which is maintained by screening multiple sources of information, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, among others. We extracted data from the identified reviews, analyzed data from the primary studies, performed a meta-analysis, and prepared a summary table of results using the GRADE method. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS We identified seven systematic reviews that together included five primary studies, all corresponding to randomized trials that evaluated the effectiveness of vortioxetine in adult patients with generalized anxiety disorder without current treatment. We conclude that it is not possible to clearly establish whether vortioxetine increases the response to treatment or improves anxious symptoms, since the certainty of the existing evidence has been assessed as very low. In addition, vortioxetine might increase adverse effects (nausea) (low-certainty evidence).