Posted by jedi on March 3, 2010, at 12:31:30
In reply to Re: Another indictment of antidepressants..., posted by SLS on March 3, 2010, at 11:51:30
Scott,
Very thoughtful comment. I could not agree more. For many patients with mild depression or the blues, the family doctors are doing a disservice by passing out the SSRIs. For those of us who have been in true major depression, there is no doubt that antidepressants work. If I would have been given a placebo instead of Nardil 12 years ago, I would not be here to write this little blurb. Thanks for your knowledge and sharing it with the rest of us.
Jedi
> I think that most clinical investigations of antidepressants suffer from a lack of specificity when selecting subjects. I believe that too many people are included whom don't have the biological illness being studied. Often, the diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder is left to the administration of primitive questionnaires comprised of 21 questions or less. No biological tests are given. Hopefully, this will change soon as more diagnostic markers are discovered. It is interesting that, statistically, people with more severe depressive symptomatologies respond better to antidepressant treatment. My guess is that these subjects are more likely to have Major Depressive Disorder. Therefore, the greater the proportion of the study population to present with severe depression, the more the results will demonstrate a greater effectiveness of drug treatment versus placebo.
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> - Scott
poster:jedi
thread:938402
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100216/msgs/938458.html