Physician prognosis in relationship to drug and placebo response in anxious and depressed psychiatric outpatients

Abstract

The relationship between treating physician's prognosis and treatment response to active drug or placebo in samples of 517 anxious and 569 depressed outpatients who had participated in 4-week double-blind drug trials was examined. Log-linear analyses employing diagnosis, prognosis, treatment (active drug or placebo), and treatment response were conducted. Anxious patients had been treated with either chlordiazepoxide or placebo, and depressed patients had received either amitriptyline or placebo. Significant differences were found, suggesting that physician prognosis is related to pharmacologically induced symptom relief in anxious but not in depressed patients. In the depressed patient sample, prognosis and improvement were found to be significantly related in placebo but not drug-treated patients.