pharmacotherapy for reducing the grieving process of romantic relationship breakup: a clinical trial

The breakup of a romantic relationship imposes considerable grief to individuals and is actually a psychological and psychiatric challenge. the current study is a clinical trial of a pharmacologic agent reducing postrelationship grief. 90 female patients with the mean age of 29.55 ± 4.65 years were divided into two groups as an intervention group (n = 45) and the control group (n = 45). all patients were experiencing a diagnosed depression due to a romantic breakup during the last six months. the control group received a standard pharmacotherapy for depression, which was 50 mg sertraline daily. the intervention group received an additional 0.05 mg clonidine daily. the treatment was continued for 8 weeks, and the visual analog scale evaluated the subjective report of the patients for grief and intensity of love. comparison of pretreatment and posttreatment grief and intensity of love were analyzed using anova. clonidine induced a significant decrease in the postbreakup grief with no significant change in the intensity of love. this pharmacotherapy is suggested for better management of romantic breakup.