These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Is drug-placebo difference in short-term antidepressant drug trials on unipolar major depression much greater than previously believed?
    Author: Rihmer Z, Gonda X.
    Journal: J Affect Disord; 2008 Jun; 108(3):195-8. PubMed ID: 18280581.
    Abstract:
    A pooled analysis of randomized placebo-controlled short-term antidepressant trials on unipolar major depression shows that the rate of antidepressant and placebo responders is 50% and 30% respectively. The traditional calculation of antidepressant-placebo difference (50-30=20%) in these drug trials is based on the assumption that all placebo responders should be antidepressant responders, a postulation that has been never investigated and proved. Further studies are needed investigating directly the relationship of placebo response in relation to antidepressant response/nonresponse. If a substantial part of placebo responders were antidepressant nonresponders, the drug-placebo differences in all short-term antidepressant drug trials on unipolar major depression are much more than 20%, and the previously published data on antidepressant-placebo difference should be re-calculated.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]