Arch Gen Psychiat
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Review Comparative Study
Control group bias in randomized atypical antipsychotic medication trials for schizophrenia.
It has been suggested that the need for concurrent placebo control groups in new schizophrenia studies might be minimized by making comparisons with external placebo. This strategy requires an assumption of constancy, that the novel medication will perform the same way in a study with only active controls as it would have in a placebo-controlled trial. ⋯ The observed control group bias indicates that the constancy assumption does not hold in recent antipsychotic medication trials. These results suggest that caution is indicated when considering active- or low dose-controlled studies requiring comparisons with external placebo as alternatives to placebo-controlled trials for establishing efficacy of new medications for schizophrenia.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Pregabalin for treatment of generalized anxiety disorder: a 4-week, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of pregabalin and alprazolam.
Pregabalin inhibits release of excess excitatory neurotransmitters, presumably by binding to the alpha2-delta subunit protein of widely distributed voltage-dependent calcium channels in the brain and spinal cord. ⋯ Pregabalin was significantly more efficacious than placebo for the treatment of psychic and somatic symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder and was well tolerated by most study patients.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Telephone-administered psychotherapy for depression.
Several studies have shown that telephone-administered cognitive-behavioral therapy (T-CBT) is superior to forms of no treatment controls. No study has examined if the skills-training component to T-CBT provides any benefit beyond that provided by nonspecific factors. ⋯ Patients showed significant improvements in depression and positive affect during the 16 weeks of telephone-administered treatment. The specific cognitive-behavioral components of T-CBT produced improvements above and beyond the nonspecific effects of telephone-administered supportive emotion-focused therapy on evaluator-rated measures of depression and self-reported positive affect. Attrition was low.