Posted by Jamal Spelling on January 6, 2008, at 1:16:06
In reply to Re: correlation does not imply causality, posted by SLS on January 5, 2008, at 21:05:34
> I thought the STAR*D claimed a success rate of 70%. Where can I find a reference stating that it was 67%? Just curious. Thanks.
On page 63 of the article you have on your website, they give the following cumulative remission rates:
Level 1 - 33%
Level 2 - 57%
Level 3 - 63%
Level 4 - 67%> Nearly 80% of the 2,876 outpatients in the analyzed sample had chronic or recurrent major depression
Indeed, it may be true that nearly 80% had chronic *or* recurrent major depression. But when you break that down, the study shows that the bulk of this figure was recurrent depression, not chronic. In fact, the rates for chronic depression were 30% and 21% respectively for the primary care and psychiatric patients. So this does not invalidate my observation the 70% remission obtained after 56 weeks of treatment may have simply been regression to the mean.
I am not disputing the claim that the majority of depression sufferers can obtain relief when following the STAR*D algorithm. My observation is merely that the remission cannot necessarily be attributed to following that treatment algorithm.
poster:Jamal Spelling
thread:804126
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080105/msgs/804590.html