TY - JOUR T1 - New NICE guideline: antidepressants and chronic pain — chicken or egg? JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 320 LP - 320 DO - 10.3399/bjgp21X716345 VL - 71 IS - 708 AU - Marion Brown Y1 - 2021/07/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/71/708/320.abstract N2 - Chronic pain is debilitating and depressing. ‘Chronic primary pain has no clear underlying condition or the pain (or its impact) appears to be out of proportion to any observable injury or disease.’1In July 2014, Sir Simon Wessely stated in an article in The Times entitled, Pain may be in the mind, that: ‘Many of them [chronic pain patients] have mental health disorders — anxiety, depression, etc’, and that, ‘patients felt dismissed and denigrated when they were referred to mental health services … ’.2As patient safety campaigners, we are hearing from many people who are developing ‘unexplained’ chronic pain conditions after taking antidepressants (ADs), as prescribed, and sometimes over many years — and this has often led to polypharmacy with other drugs added ‘for symptoms’ along the way, most likely including ADs, benzodiazepines, Z-drugs, opioids, … ER -