Abstract
Doxepin was compared to the combination of amitriptyline-perphenazine in a double-blind controlled study conducted with 100 clinic, general practice, and private psychiatric practice outpatients diagnosed as suffering from a mixed anxiety-depressive reaction. The relatively few statistically significant differences found in the study indicated amitriptyline-perphenazine to be more effective than doxepin (main drug effects), general practice patients to improve the most and private psychiatric patients the least (main population effects), and clinic patients to respond better to doxepin, while general practice and private psychiatric patients improved most with the drug combination (drug×population interaction effects).
Amitriptyline-perphenazine was found to produce more improvement in high and doxepin in low depressed patients, and doxepin was observed to be more effective in lower than in higher social class patients. Patients on doxepin tended to report more side effects, but to drop out less frequently than patients on the drug combination.
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This research was supported in part by USPHS Grants MH-08957-8. All medications were provided by Pfizer Laboratories.
Dr. Rickels is Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the Psychopharmacology Unit, Philadelphia General Hospital. Drs. Hutchison, Weise, Csanalosi, Chung, and Case are either members of our Private Practice Research Group or clinic psychiatrists.
The authors wish to thank Drs. Stanford E. Bazilian, Robert V. DeSilverio, Jorge A. Pereira-Ogan, and Milton M. Perloff; Mr. Peter Hesbacher and Misses Reita Brandt, Ellen Fisher, and Joanne Johnson for their participation in various phases of this project.
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Rickels, K., Hutchison, J.C., Weise, C.C. et al. Doxepin and amitriptyline-perphenazine in mixed anxious-depressed neurotic outpatients: A collaborative controlled study. Psychopharmacologia 23, 305–318 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00406734
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00406734