Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 1996 Dec;41(10):613-6.
doi: 10.1177/070674379604101002.

Antidepressant treatment of depression: a metaanalysis

R Joffe  1 , S Sokolov, D Streiner
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Antidepressant treatment of depression: a metaanalysis

R Joffe et al. Can J Psychiatry. 1996 Dec.

Abstract

Objective: To carry out a metaanalysis of antidepressant studies to calculate the effect sizes for antidepressant effect in depressive disorder.

Method: A metaanalysis of all antidepressant studies that included an active comparison drug as well as placebo was used to calculate the effect size. Articles were selected from a MEDLINE search for the period January 1966 to June 1995. Forty-nine studies were included in the metaanalysis.

Results: The effect sizes for antidepressant treatment are moderately larger than for placebo. A larger effect size was observed in studies where objective diagnostic criteria for depression were used.

Conclusions: We conclude that the superior efficacy of antidepressants over placebo can be demonstrated.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

MeSH terms

Substances

LinkOut - more resources