A team of psychologists from North Dakota have found that some people's driving may be adversely affected by taking antidepressants. In a study of 60 people, recruited to simulate driving, participants had to made decisions about braking, reacting to stop signs or traffic signals, while being distracted by speed limit signs, pylons or cyclists or animals on the road.
The exercise tested the skills needed for steering, concentration and scanning. 31 of the participants were taking at least one type of antidepressant while 29 in the control group were taking no medications apart from oral contraceptives in some cases.
The group on the antidepressants were then subdivided into those who scored higher and lower on a test of depression.
It was found that the group taking antidepressants who reported a high number of symptoms of depression performed significantly worse than the control group on several of the driving performance tasks.
However, researchers say that mood appears to be correlated with cognitive performance more than with medication use. So it appears that simply being depressed can contribute to poor driving skills.
