The prescribing of antidepressants in general practice. II: A placebo‐controlled trial of low‐dose dothiepin

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Abstract
General practitioners rarely treat depressed patients with more than 75 mg of a tricyclic antidepressant. This is thought to be a subtherapeutic dose for depression seen in the setting of a psychiatric hospital, but has been thought to be effective for treating the milder, mixed anxiety depressive states of general practitioners. This double‐blind placebocontrolled trial of the commonest tricyclic in use, dothiepin, at 75 mg per day, demonstrates that there is no advantage over placebo in the prescription of this dose of dothiepin. Indeed on measures of depression and somatic symptoms placebo had a significant advantage in the group who completed the trial. Dothiepin caused more side‐effects.

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