Abstract

EFFICACY OF TRICYCLIC ANTIDEPRESSANTS COMPARED WITH PLACEBO FOR MANAGEMENT OF DEPRESSION: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW & META-ANALYSIS

Arwa Abdullah Zabran*, Eman Ahmad Altooarki, Alanoud Saud Almatrafi, Alaa abdulkrim Alhunti, Fisal Najm Kareem Alatawi, Bashaer Abdalrazaq Alsaeed, Mawadah Mohammed Jannah, Samah Mohammed Aljohan, Alaa Ali Alharbi, Fatimah Turki AlGhamdi

Abstract

Background & Purpose: Antidepressant Medications (ADM) represents the current general of remedy for major depressive disorder (MDD). Antidepressant remedy has been proven to be superior to placebo in thousands of managed medical trials over the past for a long time. The Aim of this work is to provide cumulative data about the efficacy of tricyclic antidepressants (TCA) compared with placebo for management of depression. Methods: A systematic search was performed of PubMed, Cochrane library Ovid, Scopus & Google scholar to identify internal medicine RCTs, clinical trials, and comparative studies, which studied the outcome of TCA group versus Placebo group of depression patients. A meta-analysis was done using fixed and random-effect methods. The main outcome of interest was improvement of depressive state based on Hamilton depression scale. Results: A total of 5 studies were identified involving 735 patients, with 394 patients in TCA group, and 341 patients in Placebo group. Regarding main efficacy outcome measure, meta-analysis study showed that, fixed- effects model showed significant increase in rate of improvement in TCA group compared to Placebo group (p = 0.045). Conclusion: To conclude, TCA is effective treatment for patients with depression in primary care.

Keywords: Tricyclic antidepressants TCA versus Placebo, Depression.