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Some effects of chlordiazepoxide and meprobamate with psychiatric outpatients

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Summary

85 psychiatric outpatients were treated under double-blind, flexible dosage conditions for 8 weeks with either chlordiazepoxide, meprobamate, or placebo. Patients were tested—on measures of tension, anxiety, and related criteria—prior to treatment and at weekly or biweekly intervals after receiving medication. Each drug group was compared with a different matching placebo group. Despite the small number of cases and relatively low anxiety levels of many patients, there was evidence that chlordiazepoxide was probably somewhat more effective than placebo with the kinds of outpatients normally treated principally or solely with tranquilizers. Most of the evidence suggested that the maximum benefits of chlordiazepoxide appeared between 4 and 6 weeks for this sample. There was no evidence to suggest that meprobamate was more effective than placebo. Meprobamate clearly did not produce the expected effects; with some patients it appeared to act contrary to expectations. The meprobamate findings were presented in some detail because other investigators might want to check their data for similar patterns.

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Author information

Author notes

  1. Douglas M. McNair

    Present address: Psychopharmacology Laboratory, Boston University Medical School, USA

  2. Arnold P. Goldstein

    Present address: Psychology Department, Syracuse University, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Veterans Administration, Washington, D. C., USA

    Douglas M. McNair, Arnold P. Goldstein, Maurice Lorr, Louis A. Cibelli & Irvin Roth

Authors
  1. Douglas M. McNair
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  2. Arnold P. Goldstein
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  3. Maurice Lorr
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  4. Louis A. Cibelli
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  5. Irvin Roth
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Additional information

A Veterans Administration Cooperative Study of Chemotherapy in Psychiatry.

We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the thirteen Mental Hygiene Clinic staffs and, especially, the investigators who directed the study at each clinic: Albany (Ronald Tiffany, Ph.D.), Atlanta (Louis A. Cibelli, M.D.), Chicago (Irvin Roth, Ph.D.), Coral Gables (Jack Sandler, Ph.D.), Denver (Harl H. Young, jr., Ph.D.), Des Moines (Leo Subotnick, Ph.D.), Jackson (Veronica Pen-Nington, M.D.), New York (Melvin Weiderlight, M.D.), Philadelphia (Werner K. R. Welz, M.D.), San Diego (Loren E. Conner, M.D.), San Francisco (Donald A. Shaskan, M.D.), and Spokane (Alfred J. Hewitt, M.D.). We are also grateful to George J. Weinstein, M.D., Chief of Veterans Administration Outpatient Psychiatry, who was extremely helpful in making the study possible.

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McNair, D.M., Goldstein, A.P., Lorr, M. et al. Some effects of chlordiazepoxide and meprobamate with psychiatric outpatients. Psychopharmacologia 7, 256–265 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00403692

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00403692

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