Posted by SLS on July 15, 2006, at 5:58:14
In reply to Re: couldn't have said it better myself, posted by cecilia on July 15, 2006, at 1:45:08
> I think a study needs to be done on who participates in studies and why. The Star-D was supposed to be more like real world practice, because the participants had more choices in treatment options than in most studies, but since all the drugs used were ones already on the market, not experimental ones otherwise unavailable, I don't see what the participants got out of it other than free meds. If that was there primary reason for participation, than it's certainly not a random sample of depressed people, it's a sample of depressed low income people without insurance. In other words, people with plenty of reasons to be depressed that aren't fixable by meds.
If this were true, it would then it becomes that much more significant that the medications used brought the majority of subjects into comlete remission, right?
In actuality, the demographics of the patient population entering the study was well documented. I thought that was made clear in the publication I cited.
Regarding the motivations of the patients, I think one could infer from their documented failed treatment histories that they were desperate for a different strategy of care from a new panel of experts.
"Representative of national ethnic and socioeconomic populations, the study participants were outpatients ages 18-75 who scored high enough on a standard depression rating scale to be diagnosed with major depression. They included some of the most chronic patients with depression. More than a third of the participants were under age 18 when they first experienced depression, 75 percent had at least two episodes of depression, and for 25 percent the current episode of depression had lasted for at least two years."
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/press/stard.cfm
Now, this is true, and it is indeed significant that the medications used brought the majority of subjects into comlete remission, right?
These drugs do work for the majority of people accurately identified as suffering from MDD. The evidence is overwhelming.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:662854
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060709/msgs/667222.html