PLACEBO WASHOUT IS NOT A MEANINGFUL PART OF ANTIDEPRESSANT DRUG TRIALS

Most trials testing the effectiveness of psychotropic drugs begin with a placebo washout phase. Hypothetically this technique rids studies o f placebo responders before randomization of subjects to drug and plac ebo groups. In theory, this lowers the level of response to placebo in the study and magnifies the superiority of the response to medication . An analysis of 10 years of research literature demonstrates that the washout technique does not do what it was designed to do in antidepre ssant studies. Within placebo or drug groups neither measures of depre ssion nor dropouts were affected by including a preliminary washout in the design. The findings are consistent with the two other studies th at have addressed this issue.