Why has the antidepressant-placebo difference in antidepressant clinical trials diminished over the past three decades?

ABSTRACT: The increasing rate of failure of antidepressant clinical trials has led to the assertion that antidepressants do not have meaningful clinical benefits. Our hypothesis was that the decrease in antidepressant-placebo differences in antidepressant clinical trials over the past three decades could be explained by changes in research design features rather than a lack of potency of the antidepressants being tested. We collected data from 130 double blind placebo controlled antidepressant clinical trials conducted between 1981 and 2008 that included 35,122 depressed patients with 23,157 patients assigned to antidepressants and 11,965 assigned to placebo. We conducted a hierarchical regression analysis of change in HAM-D scores in antidepressant and placebo groups separately with year of publica

SUBMITTER: Khan A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6493812 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature