Seminal · article · 2013

Escitalopram versus nortriptyline: How to let the clinical <scp>GENDEP</scp> data tell us what they contained

Per Bech; Peter Allerup; Erik Roj Larsen; Cláudio Csillag; Rasmus Wentzer Licht

GENDEP is an acronym for Genome-based Therapeutic Drugs for Depression. The GENDEP trial is a partially randomized multi-centre clinical study comparing the antidepressive effect of escitalopram and nortriptyline. In their first report 1 the authors made a factor analysis across all three primary outcome rating scales. This produced three factors with items from the different scales. When using these factors, the GENDEP data were not able to discriminate with clinical significance between the antidepressive effects of the two therapeutic drugs for depression 2. We have made an attempt to let the data from the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAM-D), which was actually the first listed GENDEP primary outcome scale, tell us what they really show when using clinimetrically based analyses 3. We have consequently used both the full HAM-D17 and its six-item subscale (HAM-D6) which measures the pure ...