Posted by SalArmy4me on July 29, 2001, at 23:02:32
In reply to Effexor for Irritable Bowel, posted by NB on July 29, 2001, at 22:49:11
12. Jackson, Jeffrey L. MD, MPH. O'Malley, Patrick G. MD, MPH. Tomkins, Glen MD. Balden, Erin MD, MPH. Santoro, James MD, MPH. Kroenke, Kurt MD. Treatment of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders with Antidepressant Medications: A Meta-Analysis. American Journal of Medicine. 108(1):65-72, January 2000:
"This meta-analysis of 11 published, randomized controlled trials suggests that antidepressants may reduce the symptoms of functional gastrointestinal disorders. These results were consistent whether assessing continuous or dichotomous measures of outcome, and all published results indicated that treatment was effective (albeit not always reaching statistical significance). The magnitude of benefit also appeared clinically important. Patients treated with antidepressants were substantially more likely to improve, with about 3 patients needing treatment to improve 1 patient's symptoms. Because the studies did not use a common pain scale, we transformed pain scores to a standardized measure, and found that treatment with antidepressant medication was associated with an improvement of about 0.9 SD units, which is considered to be a large treatment effect (31). We found little or no evidence for publication bias or in homogeneity of results..."
http://www.dr-bob.org/tips/split/Antidepressants-for-irrita.html
poster:SalArmy4me
thread:72431
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010725/msgs/72434.html