Efficacy of tricyclic drugs in treating child and adolescent depression: A Meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective: To examine whether tricyclic antidepressants are superior to placebo in the treatment of child and adolescent depression. Design: Meta-analysis of 12 randomised controlled trials comparing the efficacy of tricyclic antidepressants with placebo in depressed subjects aged 6-18 years. Main outcome measures: Most studies employed several depression rating scales. For each study the “best available” measure was chosen by using objective criteria, and individual and pooled effect sizes were calculated as the number of standard deviations by which the change scores for the treatment groups exceeded those for the control groups. Where authors had reported numbers “responding” to treatment..