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Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

Antidepressants for people with both schizophrenia and depression

Overview of attention for article published in Cochrane database of systematic reviews, April 2002
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  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (68th percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (52nd percentile)

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9 X users

Citations

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75 Dimensions

Readers on

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155 Mendeley
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1 CiteULike
Title
Antidepressants for people with both schizophrenia and depression
Published in
Cochrane database of systematic reviews, April 2002
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd002305
Pubmed ID
Authors

Caroline Whitehead, Susannah Moss, Alastair Cardno, Glyn Lewis, Vivek A Furtado

Abstract

Depressive symptoms, often of substantial severity, are found in 50% of newly diagnosed suffers of schizophrenia and 33% of people with chronic schizophrenia who have relapsed. Depression is associated with dysphoria, disability, reduction of motivation to accomplish tasks and the activities of daily living, an increased duration of illness and more frequent relapses. To determine the clinical effects of antidepressant medication for the treatment of depression in people who also suffer with schizophrenia. We undertook electronic searches of the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group's Register (October 2000), ClinPsych (1988-2000), The Cochrane Library (Issue 3, 2000), EMBASE (1980-2000) and MEDLINE (1966-2000). This was supplemented by citation searching, personal contact with authors and pharmaceutical companies. All randomised clinical trials that compared antidepressant medication with placebo for people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who were also suffering from depression. Data were independently selected and extracted. For homogeneous dichotomous data the fixed effects risk difference (RD), the 95% confidence intervals (CI) and, where appropriate, the number needed to treat (NNT) were calculated on an intention-to-treat basis. For continuous data, reviewers calculated weighted mean differences. Statistical tests for heterogeneity were also undertaken. Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria. All were small, and randomised fewer than 30 people to each group. Most included people after the most acute phase of psychosis and investigated a wide range of antidepressants. The quality of reporting varied a great deal. For the outcome of 'no important clinical response' antidepressants were significantly better than placebo (n=209, 5 RCTs, summary risk difference fixed effects -0.26, 95% CI -0.39 to -0.13, NNT 4 95% CI 3 to 8). The depression score at the end of the trial, as assessed by the Hamilton Rating Scale (HAM-D), seemed to suggest that using antidepressants was beneficial, but this was only statistically significant when a fixed effects model was used (n=261, 6 RCTs, WMD fixed effects -2.2 95% CI -3.8 to -0.6; WMD random effects -2.1 95% CI -5.04 to 0.84). There was no evidence that antidepressant treatment led to a deterioration of psychotic symptoms in the included trials. Heterogeneous data on 'any adverse effect' are equivocal (n=110, 2 RCTs, RD fixed 0.11 CI -0.03 to 0.25, Chi square 7.5, df=1, p=0.0062). In one small study extrapyramidal adverse effects were reported less often by those allocated to antidepressant (n=52, 1 RCT, RD fixed -0.28 CI -0.5 to -0.04). Only about 10% of people left these studies by 12 weeks. There was no apparent difference between those allocated placebo and those given an antidepressant (n=426, 10 RCTs, RD fixed 0.04 CI -0.02 to 0.1). Overall, the literature was of poor quality, and only a small number of trials made useful contributions. Though our results provide some evidence to indicate that antidepressants may be beneficial for people with depression and schizophrenia, the results, at best, are likely to overestimate the treatment effect, and, at worst, could merely reflect selective reporting of statistically significant results and publication bias. At present, there is no convincing evidence to support or refute the use of antidepressants in treating depression in people with schizophrenia. We need further well-designed, conducted and reported research to determine the best approach towards treating depression in people with schizophrenia.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 155 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 155 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 18 12%
Student > Ph. D. Student 16 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 15 10%
Student > Bachelor 14 9%
Researcher 12 8%
Other 34 22%
Unknown 46 30%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 44 28%
Psychology 21 14%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 8 5%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 8 5%
Nursing and Health Professions 7 5%
Other 15 10%
Unknown 52 34%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 04 October 2022.
All research outputs
#7,027,634
of 25,457,297 outputs
Outputs from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#8,144
of 11,499 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#40,485
of 127,658 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#17
of 36 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,457,297 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 72nd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 11,499 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 40.0. This one is in the 29th percentile – i.e., 29% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 127,658 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 36 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 52% of its contemporaries.