Trial reportPsychological medicine2013
A randomized, prospective pilot study of patient expectancy and antidepressant outcome.
Trial report in Psychological medicine, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- International pooled patient-level meta-analysis of ketamine infusion for depression: In search of clinical moderators.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Short-Term and Late-Term Effects of Psilocybin on Symptoms in Major Depression: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2026Trial
- Efficacy and safety of intravenous ketamine treatment in Japanese patients with treatment-resistant depression: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2024Trial
- LSD-assisted therapy in patients with anxiety: open-label prospective 12-month follow-up.The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2024Trial
- Slowed Processing Speed Disrupts Patient Expectancy in Late Life Depression.The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry · 2021Trial
- Patient Expectancy as a Mediator of Placebo Effects in Antidepressant Clinical Trials.The American journal of psychiatry · 2017Trial
- Specific expectancies are associated with symptomatic outcomes and side effect burden in a trial of chamomile extract for generalized anxiety disorder.Journal of psychiatric research · 2017Trial
- Antidepressant treatment history and drug-placebo separation in a placebo-controlled trial in major depressive disorder.Psychopharmacology · 2015Trial
- Therapeutic alliance in antidepressant treatment: cause or effect of symptomatic levels?Psychotherapy and psychosomatics · 2015Trial
- Role of pill-taking, expectation and therapeutic alliance in the placebo response in clinical trials for major depression.The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2014Trial
- Implications of Genetic Attributions for Addiction in Adults Affected by Alcohol Use Disorder and Gambling Disorder.Addiction research & theory · 2025Article
- Psilocybin with psychotherapeutic support for treatment-resistant depression: a pilot clinical trial.Therapeutic advances in psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Improving the Therapeutic Relationship When Prescribing Antidepressants: A Pilot Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Assessment of Outcome-Based Measures of Depression Care Quality in Veterans Health Administration Facilities.The journal of behavioral health services & research · 2023Article
- rTMS combined with CBT as a next step in antidepressant non-responders: a study protocol for a randomized comparison with current antidepressant treatment approaches.BMC psychiatry · 2022Article
- Longitudinal effects of rTMS on neuroplasticity in chronic treatment-resistant depression.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2021Article
- Treating winter depressive episodes in bipolar disorder: an open trial of light therapy.International journal of bipolar disorders · 2020Article
- Article
- Not Just Nonspecific Factors: The Roles of Alliance and Expectancy in Treatment, and Their Neurobiological Underpinnings.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2018Review
- Psychiatrists' Attitudes Toward Non-Pharmacologic Factors Within the Context of Antidepressant Pharmacotherapy.Academic psychiatry : the journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThis study is a randomized, prospective, investigation of the relationships between clinical trial design, patient expectancy and the outcome of treatment with antidepressant medication. Method Adult out-patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) were randomized to either placebo-controlled (PC, 50% probability of receiving active medication) or comparator (COMP, 100% probability of receiving active medication) administration of antidepressant medication. Independent-samples t tests and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were used to determine whether the probability of receiving active medication influenced patient expectancy and to compare medication response in the PC v. COMP conditions. We also tested the correlations between baseline expectancy score and final improvement in depressive symptoms across study groups.
resultsSubjects randomized to the COMP condition reported greater expectancy of improvement compared to subjects in the PC condition (t = 2.60, df = 27, p = 0.015). There were no statistically significant differences in the analyses comparing antidepressant outcomes between subjects receiving medication in the COMP condition and those receiving medication in the PC condition. Higher baseline expectancy of improvement was correlated with lower final depression severity scores (r = 0.53, p = 0.021) and greater improvement in depressive symptoms over the course of the study (r = 0.44, p = 0.058).
conclusionsThe methods described represent a promising way of subjecting patient expectancy to scientific study. Expectancy of improvement is affected by the probability of receiving active antidepressant medication and seems to influence antidepressant response.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.