Thase et al use a sophisticated model to assess the 'true' effect of active antidepressant therapy v. placebo.Health authorities generally evaluate the efficacy of new medications from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) v. placebo which are well documented and rely on such a simple statistical paradigm that they can resist the major financial conflicts of interest inherent in the evaluation of pharmaceuticals. Concerning antidepressants, these studies generally identify small, average drug-placebo differences.Using statistical modelling, other authors have addressed the question of outcome measurement3 and found that efficacy is better understood as a large effect in a subgroup of patients. This is consistent with the common clinical viewpoint.
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