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Title: | Symptom trajectories in discontinuation trials. |
Authors: | Browning, Michael |
Keywords: | Depressive Disorders Antidepressant Drugs |
Issue Date: | Feb-2017 |
Citation: | Browning, M., 2017. Symptom trajectories in discontinuation trials. Lancet Psychiatry 4, 176–178 |
Abstract: | Many patients with clinical depression, particularly those with recurrent illness, are treated with maintenance antidepressants after an acute-phase response. But how effective is this approach? The effectiveness of maintenance treatment is most commonly tested in trials with a discontinuation design, 1 in which patients who have already responded to a treatment are randomly assigned to either ongoing treatment or placebo. Such studies provide a measure of the benefit of maintenance treatment over discontinuation. However, discontinuation studies have several limitations. The first is common to psychiatric treatment studies generally; how and when should we assess whether a patient's symptoms have changed after discontinuation? The second is more specific to discontinuation designs; the selection of patients based on a positive response to that treatment is likely to inflate the apparent beneficial effect of the treatment, because that subgroup of patients has the most to lose from stopping treatment. |
URI: | https://oxfordhealth-nhs.archive.knowledgearc.net/handle/123456789/702 |
ISSN: | 2215-0366 |
Appears in Collections: | Depressive Disorders |
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