ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: The authors' objective was to determine the efficacy of fluoxetine at high doses for the treatment of trichotillomania in a long-term, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial. METHOD: Twenty-three adult chronic hair pullers agreed to take part in the trial, taking fluoxetine doses of up to 80 mg/day. The 31-week trial consisted of a 2-week washout phase, a first treatment phase of 12 weeks, a 5-week washout phase, and a crossover second treatment phase of 12 weeks. Sixteen patients (14 women and two men) completed the trial. RESULTS: There were no significant differences between fluoxetine and placebo treatments for the measures of weekly severity of hair pulling, weekly severity of urge to pull, daily hair counts (or estimated hair pulled), or days of hair pulling. CONCLUSIONS: The efficacy of fluoxetine in the treatment of trichotillomania was not demonstrated in this study.
Subject(s)
Fluoxetine/therapeutic use , Trichotillomania/drug therapy , Adult , Age of Onset , Comorbidity , Cross-Over Studies , Double-Blind Method , Female , Humans , Male , Placebos , Severity of Illness Index , Treatment Outcome , Trichotillomania/psychologyABSTRACT
Identification and documentation of adverse drug events (ADEs) is an essential prerequisite for the evaluation of the therapeutic value of drug treatment. The present article focuses on the methods used to elicit ADEs during the early drug development phase. These methods vary in the sources of information (patient or physician) used to identify and document ADEs and in the areas (e.g., general scales or special motor performance scales) studied for ADEs.
Subject(s)
Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions , Documentation , Dyskinesia, Drug-Induced/physiopathology , Humans , Psychomotor Performance/drug effects , Psychotropic Drugs/adverse effectsABSTRACT
A double-blind study which compared the effects of nomifensine and nortriptyline was carried out in outpatients with retarded depressions. It demonstrated that nomifensine has distinct antidepressive and activating effects. 40 patients (17 male and 23 female) with either endogenous, endogenous/reactive or reactive depression were divided into two treatment groups of 20. During the 21-day study, all patients were given three 50-mg capsules of either nomifensine or nortriptyline per day. With the aid of a depression scale, devised by Pöldinger, a significant improvement in the psychic symptoms was noted both in the nomifensine and in the nortriptyline group. There was no evidence of a significant difference between the two drugs. From the results of the study, it can be concluded that nomifensine is suitable for the treatment of patients with retarded depressions.
