This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

VIDEO: How inclusion, exclusion criteria hinders antidepressant efficacy study findings

ATLANTA — Inclusion and exclusion criteria for antidepressant efficacy studies may weaken the application of study findings to clinical practice, according to Mark Zimmerman, MD, of director of outpatient psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital.

“Last year we published a comprehensive review of 170 antidepressant efficacy trials for major depressive disorder and found that the inclusion and exclusion criteria have become even narrower in studies of efficacy of antidepressants,” Zimmerman told Healio.com/Psychiatry.

Zimmerman compares the effect of inclusion and exclusion criteria in studies of antidepressant efficacy for major depressive disorder vs. bipolar depression.