Assessment of blinding in randomized controlled trials of antidepressants for depressive disorders 2000-2020: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

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 betw

SUBMITTER: Lin YH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9257339 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature