ArticleEClinicalMedicine2022
Assessment of blinding in randomized controlled trials of antidepressants for depressive disorders 2000-2020: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Article in EClinicalMedicine, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 4 of them syntheses 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
27 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Psychedelics as an intervention for psychological, existential distress in terminally ill patients: A systematic review and network meta-analysis.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2026Pooled it
- Individual patient data meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors submitted for regulatory approval in adult obsessive-compulsive disorder.The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2025Pooled it
- Comparing apples and oranges in youth depression treatments? A quantitative critique of the evidence base and guidelines.BMJ mental health · 2025Pooled it
- Escitalopram versus other antidepressive agents for major depressive disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Efficacy and target engagement of dopamine agonist pramipexole for anhedonic depression: a randomized placebo-controlled trial.Nature medicine · 2026Trial
- Efficacy and Safety of the Neuroplastogen TSND-201 for the Treatment of PTSD: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA psychiatry · 2026Trial
- Home-based transcranial direct current stimulation treatment for major depressive disorder: a fully remote phase 2 randomized sham-controlled trial.Nature medicine · 2025Trial
- Personality change in a trial of psilocybin therapy v. escitalopram treatment for depression.Psychological medicine · 2024Trial
- Blinding, Expectancy, and the Active Placebo Paradox in MDMA Research.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Mechanisms of pruritus and advances in traditional Chinese medicine therapy (Review).Molecular medicine reports · 2026Review
- Measuring and appraising placebo effects in clinical trials: contemporary challenges and approaches in psychiatry.The lancet. Psychiatry · 2026Review
- Testing the internal validity of the maintenance/discontinuation study design for antidepressant medications in depression using simulations.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- From Efficacy to Effectiveness: Evaluating Psychedelic Randomized Controlled Trials for Trustworthy Evidence-Based Policy and Practice.Pharmacology research & perspectives · 2025Review
- Modifying Informed Consent to Help Address Functional Unmasking in Psychedelic Clinical Trials.JAMA psychiatry · 2025Review
- Methods to address functional unblinding of raters in CNS trials.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Blinding assessment in randomised sham-controlled trials of acupuncture:protocol for a systematic survey.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Methodological and reporting recommendations for clinical trials in Nutritional Psychiatry: Guidelines from the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research.The British journal of nutrition · 2024Article
- A simple blinding index for randomized controlled trials.Contemporary clinical trials communications · 2024Article
- Evidence versus expectancy: the development of psilocybin therapy.BJPsych bulletin · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: In double-blind randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of antidepressants, blinding can be broken due to the apparent side effects, and unsuccessful blinding can lead to overestimation of effect sizes. New generation antidepressants with less severe side effects may be less susceptible to broken blinding. However, successfulness of blinding in new generation antidepressant trials and its influence on trial effect size estimates remain unclear. Methods: Extending a previous systematic review assessing blinding successfulness in psychiatric trials (2000-2010), we searched PubMed/Medline for double-blinded antidepressant RCTs (2010-2020) for trials assessing blinding success. Our primary outcome was the degree of blinding successfulness, measured as kappa statistics between guesses and true allocations. We used random-effects meta-analysis to synthesize studies. We used meta-regression and Pearson's r to examine the relationship between blinding success and effect sizes. This study is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42021249973). Findings: Among 154 eligible studies, 11 (7·1%) contained information on blinding assessment between 2010 and 2020. Five studies were added from the previous review, and altogether nine of the 16 studies provided usable data. Agreement in individual studies ranged from Interpretation: Less than 10% of the antidepressant RCTs reported blinding assessment. The results in new generation antidepressant trials indicated that patients and assessors were unlikely to be able to judge treatment allocation. There was little evidence that the extent of unblinding biased the effect size estimates of new generation antidepressants. Funding: None.
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