The American journal of psychiatry
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study
A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of oxcarbazepine in the treatment of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents.
This multicenter trial examined the efficacy and safety of oxcarbazepine in the treatment of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents. ⋯ Oxcarbazepine is not significantly superior to placebo in the treatment of bipolar disorder in youths. While the overall adverse event profile was similar to that reported for patients with epilepsy, the incidence of psychiatric adverse events for both the oxcarbazepine and placebo groups was higher than that reported for the epilepsy population.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Effectiveness of olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, and ziprasidone in patients with chronic schizophrenia following discontinuation of a previous atypical antipsychotic.
In the treatment of schizophrenia, changing antipsychotics is common when one treatment is suboptimally effective, but the relative effectiveness of drugs used in this strategy is unknown. This randomized, double-blind study compared olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, and ziprasidone in patients who had just discontinued a different atypical antipsychotic. ⋯ Among this group of patients with chronic schizophrenia who had just discontinued treatment with an atypical antipsychotic, risperidone and olanzapine were more effective than quetiapine and ziprasidone as reflected by longer time until discontinuation for any reason.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Effectiveness of clozapine versus olanzapine, quetiapine, and risperidone in patients with chronic schizophrenia who did not respond to prior atypical antipsychotic treatment.
When a schizophrenia patient has an inadequate response to treatment with an antipsychotic drug, it is unclear what other antipsychotic to switch to and when to use clozapine. In this study, the authors compared switching to clozapine with switching to another atypical antipsychotic in patients who had discontinued treatment with a newer atypical antipsychotic in the context of the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials for Interventions Effectiveness (CATIE) investigation. ⋯ For these patients with schizophrenia who prospectively failed to improve with an atypical antipsychotic, clozapine was more effective than switching to another newer atypical antipsychotic. Safety monitoring is necessary to detect and manage clozapine's serious side effects.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Multicenter investigation of the opioid antagonist nalmefene in the treatment of pathological gambling.
Pathological gambling is a disabling disorder experienced by approximately 1%-2% of adults and for which there are few empirically validated treatments. The authors examined the efficacy and tolerability of the opioid antagonist nalmefene in the treatment of adults with pathological gambling. ⋯ Subjects who received nalmefene had a statistically significant reduction in severity of pathological gambling. Low-dose nalmefene (25 mg/day) appeared efficacious and was associated with few adverse events. Higher doses (50 mg/day and 100 mg/day) resulted in intolerable side effects.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Symptom dimensions of depression following myocardial infarction and their relationship with somatic health status and cardiovascular prognosis.
The reporting of depressive symptoms following myocardial infarction may be confounded by complaints originating from the myocardial infarction. Therefore, it is difficult to estimate the effects of post-myocardial infarction depression and its treatment on cardiovascular prognosis. The authors' goal was to study the relationship between depressive symptom dimensions following myocardial infarction and both somatic health status and prospective cardiovascular prognosis. ⋯ Somatic/affective depressive symptoms following myocardial infarction were confounded by somatic health status yet were prospectively associated with cardiac prognosis even after somatic health status was controlled. Cognitive/affective depressive symptoms were only marginally related to health status and not to cardiac prognosis. These findings suggest that treatment of depression following myocardial infarction might improve cardiovascular prognosis when it reduces somatic/affective symptoms.