We proposed an active safety surveillance system and demonstrated the feasibility of using epidemiological methods for signal detection in a cumulative, sequential approach using historical data on antidepressants for a 20-year period.

Our system would complement the existing surveillance mainly based on spontaneous reporting by detecting potential safety signals as soon as they appeared in healthcare registries and allowing preliminary quantification of the risk of serious medical events.

Larger populations are needed to detect signals for rare events and infrequently used antidepressants.