Posted by SLS on December 31, 2009, at 2:03:13
In reply to Re: Zoloft and Lexapro best choices for first-line?, posted by mtdewcmu on December 30, 2009, at 22:55:08
> I have some questions about how things were measured. For instance, if a person dropped out of a study due to side effects, were they counted as a non-responder?
Yes. That is what they wanted to determine in their "intent to treat" statistics.
> In that case, the dropouts would be double-counted, once in the efficacy and once in the acceptability.
Exactly. You hit the target on that one.
"Efficacy" does not mean "effectiveness". Efficacy is a measure of how well an agent produces a therapeutic effect. Tolerability is a measure of untoward effect. Effectiveness is an index of efficacy and tolerability taken together.
> There is no other pharmacological reason I can conceive of that Paxil rated so low in efficacy.
That is a great observation. I think you are right, although I believe that "effectiveness" would be the operating word here.
Like I said, they might not have it exactly right, but I think they are close enough to at least use their concept as a guide to encourage similar investigations.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:931556
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20091227/msgs/931726.html