Posted by mtdewcmu on December 31, 2009, at 11:30:12
In reply to Re: Zoloft and Lexapro best choices for first-line? » mtdewcmu, posted by SLS on December 31, 2009, at 2:03:13
> > 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.
>
>
> - ScottOK. So that suggests that IF you can tolerate Paxil, then you can probably expect it to work as well as any other SSRI.
poster:mtdewcmu
thread:931556
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20091227/msgs/931785.html