Early Improvement in One Week Predicts the Treatment Response to Escitalopram in Patients with Social Anxiety Disorder: A Preliminary Study.

Objective: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) shows relatively delayed responses to pharmacotherapy when compared to other anxiety disorders. Therefore, more effective early therapeutic decisions can be made if the therapeutic response is predictable as early as possible. We studied whether the therapeutic response at 12 weeks is predictable based on the early improvement with escitalopram at 1 week.