Posted by Ines on May 3, 2007, at 18:33:52
In reply to Re: Do antidepressants work ?, posted by linkadge on May 3, 2007, at 17:51:14
Hey Linkadge,
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you in a way. I just think that the placebo effect will be strong in cases where the depression would solve itself anyway, but not so strong in many other cases. In a lot of clinical trials- though not all- all these cases get bunched together, so it confounds the results in my view. A good clinical trial would match individuals in placebo and treatment groups according to subtype of depression, age of onset, recurrency of depression, whether the depression was precipitated by a specific event or not...all these factors. I understand it's impossible to carry out a large clinical trial with all these matches, but without that it's difficult to be clear about the results in my view. Of course the absolutely ideal clinical trial would be within subject, the same person gets placebo and then treatment or vice versa. There you eliminate most of the variability.
poster:Ines
thread:755317
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070502/msgs/755591.html