PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

Rachel Churchill

Publications and source records attributed to Rachel Churchill.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Psychotherapy plus antidepressant for panic disorder with or without agoraphobia: systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Panic disorder can be treated with psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy or a combination of both. AIMS: To summarise the evidence concerning the short- and long-term benefits and adverse effects of a combination of psychotherapy and antidepressant treatment. METHOD: Meta-analyses and meta-regressions were undertaken using data from all relevant randomised controlled trials identified by a comprehensive literature search. The primary outcome was relative risk (RR) of response. RESULTS: We identified 23 randomised comparisons (21 trials involving a total of 1709 patients). In the acute-phase treatment, the combined therapy was superior to antidepressant pharmacotherapy (RR=1.24,95% CI1.02-1.52) or psychotherapy (RR=1.16,95% CI1.03-1.30). After termination of the acute-phase treatment, the combined therapy was more effective than pharmacotherapy alone (RR=1.61,95% CI1.23-2.11) and was as effective as psychotherapy (RR=0.96, 95% CI 0.79-1.16). CONCLUSIONS: Either combined therapy or psychotherapy alone may be chosen as first-line treatment for panic disorder with or without agoraphobia, depending on the patient's preferences.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Comparison of large versus smaller randomized trials for mental health-related interventions.

OBJECTIVE: The extent of disagreement between large and smaller randomized, controlled trials on mental health issues is unknown. The authors aimed to compare the results of large versus smaller trials on mental health-related interventions. METHOD: The authors screened 161 Cochrane and 254 Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness systematic reviews on mental health-related interventions. They identified 16 meta-analyses with at least one "large" randomized trial with sample size >800 and at least one "smaller" trial. Effect sizes were calculated separately for large and smaller trials. Heterogeneity was assessed between all studies, within each group (large and smaller studies), and between large and smaller studies. RESULTS: Significant between-study heterogeneity was seen in five meta-analyses. By random-effects calculations, the results of large and smaller trials differed beyond chance in four meta-analyses (25%). In three of these disagreements (effect of day care on IQ, discontinuation of antidepressants, risperidone versus typical antipsychotics for schizophrenia), the smaller trials showed greater effect sizes than the large trials. The inverse was seen in one case (olanzapine versus typical antipsychotics for schizophrenia). With fixed-effects models, disagreements beyond chance occurred in five cases (31%). In four meta-analyses, the effect size differed over twofold between large and smaller trials. Various quality and design parameters were identified as potential explanations for some disagreements. CONCLUSIONS: Large trials are uncommon in mental health. Their results are usually comparable with the results of smaller studies, but major disagreements do occur. Both large and smaller trials should be scrutinized as they offer a continuum of randomized evidence.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Effect sizes in cumulative meta-analyses of mental health randomized trials evolved over time.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Meta-analyses of randomized trials may incorporate new evidence, and estimated treatment effects changeover time. We evaluated whether the certainty and estimates of efficacy and tolerability of mental health interventions change over time, as more trials appear on the same topics. METHODS: One hundred meta-analyses (1,024 trial entries; 99,303 participants) with an outcome of death, relapse, failure or dropout and with five or more trials published in three or more different years were examined with cumulative meta-analysis and recursive cumulative meta-analysis. RESULTS: Eight meta-analyses reached formal statistical significance (P < .05) at some point, but lost this significance eventually when more trials were published; typically large effect sizes in early trials were dissipated with further evidence. With 500 randomized subjects,95% of the time, subsequent changes in odds ratio might be up to 1.5-fold. For death, relapse, and failure outcomes, a decrease in effect size was somewhat more common than an increase, when more data became available (157 vs. 125, P = .06). This was most clear for comparisons of pharmacotherapies versus placebo (79 vs. 51, P = .009). CONCLUSIONS: Evidence based on a small number of randomized subjects should be interpreted cautiously. Early treatment efficacy of pharmacotherapies is occasionally overestimated.

Data Interpretation, Statistical↗
PubMed2004

Safety reporting in randomized trials of mental health interventions.

OBJECTIVE: The authors aimed to evaluate the adequacy of the reporting of safety information in publications of randomized trials of mental-health-related interventions. METHOD: The authors randomly selected 200 entries from the PsiTri registry of mental-health-related controlled trials. This yielded 142 randomized trials that were analyzed for adequacy and relative emphasis of their content on safety issues. They examined drug trials as well as trials of other types of interventions. RESULTS: Across the 142 eligible trials, 103 involved drugs. Twenty-five of the 142 trials had at least 100 randomly chosen subjects and at least 50 subjects in a study arm. Among drug trials, only 21.4% had adequate reporting of clinical adverse events, and only 16.5% had adequate reporting of laboratory-determined toxicity, while 32.0% reported both the numbers and the reasons for withdrawals due to toxicity in each arm. On average, drug trials devoted 1/10 of a page in their results sections to safety, and 58.3% devoted more space to the names and affiliations of authors than to safety. None of the trials of nondrug interventions had adequate or even partially adequate reporting of either clinical adverse events or laboratory-determined toxicity. In multivariate modeling, long-term trials and trials conducted in the United States devoted even less space to safety, while schizophrenia trials devoted more space to safety than did trials in other areas. CONCLUSIONS: Safety reporting is largely neglected across trials of mental-health-related interventions, thus hindering the assessment of risk-benefit ratios for rational decision making in mental health care.

Decision Making↗
PubMed2003

Dysfunctional attitudes and the common mental disorders in primary care.

BACKGROUND: Dysfunctional attitudes may predispose to episodes of depression, although the evidence for this is poor. Most previous studies have been cross-sectional, or have followed up clinical samples. The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that dysfunctional attitudes are associated with the onset and repeat prevalence of episodes of the common mental disorders among primary care attenders. METHODS: A 12-month prospective cohort study of 305 consecutive primary care attenders at a health centre in south London. RESULTS: Linear associations were found between (high) score on the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS) and both the onset and repeat prevalence of episodes of the common mental disorders over 12 months (unadjusted OR for episode onset 1.05, 95% CI 1.01-1.09) (P = 0.009). The association with episode onset, but not with repeat prevalence, remained statistically significant after adjusting for CIS-R score at baseline (OR 1.05, 95% CI 1.00-1.09) (P = 0.03). LIMITATIONS: This study was based in a single general practice, and had limited power to detect statistically significant interactions between DAS score and socio-economic adversity. CONCLUSIONS: Dysfunctional attitudes may be a risk factor for the onset (but not the outcome) of episodes of moderately severe, typically comorbid, anxiety and depression found in primary care settings.

Adolescent↗