A COMPARISON OF PATIENTS WITH MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER RECRUITED THROUGH NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING VERSUS CONSULTATION REFERRALS FOR CLINICAL DRUG TRIALS

Difficulties in recruiting patients for clinical trials have plagued i nvestigators for many years. One concern is the generalizability of cl inical trial results to community practice, that is, whether volunteer s recruited through advertising are homogeneous with those seeking tre atment in a clinical setting. This article retrospectively compares th e baseline characteristics of patients recruited through newspaper adv ertisements with those recruited through consultation referrals by rev iewing the charts of 54 patients enrolled in two clinical trials for m ajor depressive disorder (MDD). We examined demographic data, backgrou nd information, clinical histories, and baseline status. Results indic ated homogeneity for most variables. The consultation group was signif icantly more likely to have had previous treatment for the current epi sode of depression. These results suggest that, although the advertise ment and consultation groups were very similar, the drug naivety of th e advertisement group may make them a preferred source in terms of gen eralizability to community practice.