Citation

Khan A, Warner HA, Brown WA. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 2000; 57(4): 311-317.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, American Medical Association)

DOI

10.1001/archpsyc.57.4.311

PMID

10768687

Abstract

The assumption that depressed patients who are assigned to placebo in antidepressant clinical trials are exposed to substantial morbidity and mortality is not based on research data. We assessed suicides, suicide attempts, and depressive symptom reduction in studies of 7 new antidepressants using the Food and Drug Administration database. Among 19,639 participating patients, 34 committed suicide (0.8% per year), and 130 attempted suicide (2.9% per year). Rates of suicide and attempted suicide did not differ significantly among the placebo- and drug-treated groups. Annual rates of suicide and attempted suicide were 0.4% and 2.7% with placebo, 0.7% and 3.4% with active comparators, and 0.8% and 2.8% with investigational antidepressants, respectively. Symptom reduction was 40.7% with investigational drugs (n = 4,510), 41.7% with active comparators (n = 1,416), and 30.9% with placebo (n = 2,805). These data may help inform discussions about the use of placebo in antidepressant clinical trials.

Language: en

Keywords

Humans; Risk Factors; United States/epidemiology; Incidence; Treatment Outcome; Suicide, Attempted/statistics & numerical data; Suicide/*statistics & numerical data; Empirical Approach; Mental Health Therapies; Antidepressive Agents/*therapeutic use; Biomedical and Behavioral Research; Databases as Topic; Depressive Disorder/*drug therapy/psychology; Drug Evaluation/standards; Ethics, Medical; Patient Selection; Placebos/*adverse effects/therapeutic use; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic/*standards; Research Design/standards; United States Food and Drug Administration/statistics & numerical data