Does A Placebo Tablet Affect Psychotherapeutic Treatment Outcome? Results from the Pittsburgh Study of Maintenance Therapies in Recurrent Depression

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Abstract
Since combinations of medication and psychotherapy are being increasingly used in randomized clinical trials, an important issue is whether psychotherapy administered with a double-blind placebo tablet is different from psychotherapy unaccompanied by pill-taking. This study reports no significant differences in these two treatment conditions for patients with recurrent depression entered into a long-term maintenance trial with respect to either treatment outcome (e.g., recurrence, restabilization, attrition), psychobiological parameters (e.g., sleep physiology in recovery), or treatment specificity ratings. Our findings suggest that either a psychotherapy with placebo tablet condition or a more ecologically valid psychotherapy without placebo tablet may be suitable in long-term maintenance treatment trials of recurrent depression. Whether these results can be generalized to acute treatment trials or to long-term studies of other disorders remains an open question.

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