ArticlePsychological medicine2025
Do complex psychometric analyses really matter? Comparing multiple approaches using individual participant data from antidepressant trials.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- 'We're not going to start lifting stones now…': Stakeholder perspectives on the role of psychometric methods in outcome measurement.The British journal of clinical psychology · 2026Article
- Applying advanced psychometrics to antipsychotic treatment trials: A protocol comparing effect estimates.Open research Europe · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPsychometric methods are used to remove underperforming items and reduce error in existing measures, albeit different approaches can produce different results. This study aimed to determine the implications of applying different psychometric methods for clinical trial outcomes.
methodsIndividual participant data from 15 antidepressant treatment trials from Vivli.org were analyzed. Baseline (pretreatment) and 8-week (range 4-12 weeks) outcome data from the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale were subjected to best-practice factor analysis (FA), item response theory (IRT), and network analysis (NA) approaches. Trial outcomes for the original summative scores and psychometric-model scores were assessed using multilevel models. Percentage differences in Cohen's
resultsEach method produced unidimensional models, but the modified scales varied from 7 to 10 items. Treatment effects ( DISCUSSION: IRT and NA yielded negligible differences in effect outcomes relative to original trials. FA increased effect sizes and may be the most effective method for identifying the items on which placebo and treatment group outcomes differ.
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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.