Objective To investigate the therapeutic effects of citalopram on alleviating painful symptoms in type 2 diabetes mellitus(DM) patients with complication of painful peripheral neuropathy.Methods Thirty-eight type 2 DM patients with painful peripheral neuropathy were randomly divided into control group(eighteen patients) and treatment group(twenty patients).The diabetes control(including fasting blood glucose) and general health state(including body mass index,liver function,renal function) of patients were recorded.Patients in control group were given conventional drugs(including hypoglycemic drugs,anodyne,neurotrophy drugs,antiplatelet drugs),and those in treatment group received conventional drugs plus antidepressant drugs(citalopram,20mg,q.i.d.for 14 days).Hamilton Depression Rating Scale for Depression(HAMD-17) was used to assess the depressive symptoms,and numeric pain intensity scale(NPIS) was used to assess the pain intensity on baseline and the 1st,7th and 14th day.At the same time,the levels of analgesic agents were recorded.Results On the 7th and 14th day,the HAMD-17 scores in treatment group(22.14?8.92,18.69?9.4) were significantly lowered compared with that in control group(26.81?9.79,25.71?9.92),P