[Difficulties of a clinician in planning psychopharmacological trials (author's transl)]

Abstract

From the clinical examinators point of view, we present a few problems in planning psychopharmacological trials. Our main topic is not answering the questions but formulating them in a more precise manner. The following problems are discussed: formulation of hypotheses, choice of experimental designs (open, double-blind, placebo-controlled), effects of placebo, choice of reference substances, duration of trials, pharmacopsychiatric acute trials, frequence and interval of assessments, size and kind of patient sample, fixed or flexible dosage schedule, pretreatment, wash-out, additional medication, choice of the assessement instrument and double assessment of the initial values.