On October 15, 2026, the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) announced that patient information leaflets for certain antidepressants will add the term "Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction" (PSSD). The new wording warns patients that sexual side effects can continue after they stop taking the drug. The change comes from a review commissioned by the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM). Its Expert Working Group met from May 2024 to July 2025 after patients and families complained that existing leaflets didn't communicate two risks clearly: suicidal thoughts and behaviours, and sexual dysfunction that continues after treatment ends. CHM considered the recommendations in September 2025.

Why It Matters

The change puts the patient-coined term "PSSD" into official UK medicines labelling. That gives a contested, under-researched condition regulatory standing. Antidepressants are among the most widely prescribed drugs in the UK, so many patients will now read in the box that their sex life could be affected after they stop treatment. Several things follow for the sexual-health market. Expect more demand for clinicians and sex therapists who know medication-induced dysfunction, more patients asking about drugs with lower sexual-side-effect profiles, and more attention on women's arousal and desire products and men's ED and delayed-orgasm treatments as patients look for workarounds. Finasteride in May and SSRIs in October show the MHRA treating sexual side effects as something patients need to be told about clearly. Telehealth platforms that prescribe both hair-loss and mental-health drugs to the same customers should check their consent flows.

According to the MHRA's Drug Safety Update, the PSSD wording applies to ten medicines: citalopram, escitalopram, duloxetine, fluvoxamine, fluoxetine, paroxetine, sertraline, venlafaxine, amitriptyline and nortriptyline. That list covers most of the SSRIs and SNRIs prescribed in the UK. The patient-facing wording says there is "the potential for you to experience sexual dysfunction with some antidepressants, which may continue even after you stop the medicine." Clinicians are told to raise it when starting or changing a dose, or at the next review, and to report suspected cases through the Yellow Card scheme. The package also includes a new boxed warning on suicidality, a credit-card-sized patient card expected in or on the medicine box, and an ancillary leaflet for both new and existing patients that will arrive in 2027.

The MHRA presented the change as better communication of known risks, not a reassessment of them. "The aim is not to discourage use, but to improve the prominence and clarity of the existing warnings," said Chief Safety Officer Dr Alison Cave, who added that patients should not stop taking antidepressants without talking to a clinician. Chemist+Druggist reports that clinicians are being told to describe both risks as "not new" but important to know about. Pharmacy Business notes that this follows the MHRA's May decision to strengthen warnings about psychiatric and sexual side effects of the hair-loss drug finasteride.

Sources

Update — 2026-10-18

Initial entry — story first created.