Doctors Hope to Cut Out the Guesswork in Prescribing Antidepressants. When someone swallows his or her first antidepressant, it may come as a surprise how the psychiatrist chose that particular pill to prescribe: It’s a best guess out of dozens of antidepressants on the market.

Now, a few psychiatrists have set out to bring some order to this educated guessing game. By looking at 117 studies of the 12 most popular antidepressants, researchers ranked the top 12 drugs in the journal The Lancet.

To view their results, click here.

Zoloft and Lexapro came in first for a combination of effectiveness and fewer side effects, followed by Prozac (fluoxetine), Paxil (paroxetine), Cymbalta, and Luvox among others.

“We were surprised because we found a difference among antidepressants,” said Dr. Andrea Cipriani of the University of Verona, Italy, and a co-author on the study.

“What we usually said was that all antidepressants worked the same,” said Cipriani, who explained that doctors often compare different side effects while choosing an antidepressant.

“So, is there a rationale, is there a hierarchy?” Cipriani asked.