Abstract: OBJECTIVE To systematically review the clinical effective rate of four different therapeutic mechanisms antidepressants of amitriptyline, escitalopram, mirtazapine and venlafaxine in treating acute phase depression disorder in China. METHODS The relative randomized controlled trials(RCTs) about the four antidepressants in the treatment of depression disorder was searched in VIP, CNKI and WanFang Data from the date of their establishment to July 2015. Two reviewers independently screened literatures according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data and conducted methodological quality evaluation. Meta-analysis of single rate was then performed using R software. RESULTS A total of 129 studies involving 9 371 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis of single rate showed the clinical effective rate of escitalopram, mirtazapine, venlafaxine and amitriptyline were 76.79% 95%CI(74.18%, 79.21%), 75.65% 95%CI(73.30%, 77.86%), 75.14% 95%CI(73.03%, 77.14%) and 70.53% 95%CI(67.73%, 73.13%), respectively. CONCLUSION Escitalopram’s clinical effective rate is the highest, but no significant differences with mirtazapine and venlafaxine in 95% confidence interval. Amitriptyline’s effective rate is significantly lower than the other three drugs. From the perspective of clinical effective, amitriptyline don’t recommend to be used. Due to the limited quantity and quality of included studies, more high quality studies are needed to verify the above conclusion.