ArticleThe Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry2024
Treatment guesses in the Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study: Accuracy, unblinding and influence on outcomes.
Article in The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT00006286 (Treatment for Adolescents With Depression Study), which is not on this map. Cited by 5 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.
Treatment for Adolescents With Depression Study (TADS)
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The risks of adverse events with venlafaxine for adults with major depressive disorder: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials with meta-analysis and Trial Sequential Analysis.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2024Pooled it
- Beyond KPAQ Improvement: Reassessing the Clinical Meaning of Cilostazol-Rosuvastatin Combination Therapy in Symptomatic Peripheral Artery Disease.Cardiovascular drugs and therapy · 2026Article
- Response to Wang et al. and Shen et al.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2026Article
- The assessment of suicidality in psychiatric trials: a protocol for a scoping review.Systematic reviews · 2025Article
- Are the results of open randomised controlled trials comparing antipsychotic drugs in schizophrenia biased? Exploratory meta- and subgroup analysis.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 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
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveWe evaluated the presence and impact of unblinding during the influential Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00006286).
methodOur analysis was part of a Restoring Invisible and Abandoned Trials reanalysis. Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study trialled fluoxetine, placebo, cognitive behaviour therapy or their combination, in treating adolescents with major depressive disorder. We analysed the accuracy of guesses of fluoxetine or placebo allocation, and their effects on change in Children's Depression Rating Scale-Revised at 12 weeks.
resultsOf 221 participants allocated to fluoxetine or placebo, 151 adolescents (68%) had their guess about pill-treatment-arm allocation recorded at week 6, and guesses were recorded for 154 independent evaluators, 159 parents and 164 pharmacotherapists. All of these groups guessed treatment allocation more accurately than would be expected by chance (60-66% accuracy; all
conclusionsFor Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study, treatment guesses strongly predicted outcomes and may have led to the exaggeration of drug effectiveness in the absence of actual effects. The integrity of double-blinding in trials should be routinely assessed and reported.
Indexed as
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Registered trials
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