The effect of forewarning on the occurrence of side-effects and discontinuance of medication in patients on dothiepin.
Dothiepin was prescribed for 100 depressed out-patients alternately allocated to one of two groups. Patients in Group A were forewarned about side-effects and patients in Group B were not forewarned. None of the patients had previously received dothiepin. After two weeks the patients were questioned regarding side-effects and continuance with medication. Eighty-nine patients were included in the final analysis. The results failed to confirm the hypotheses that forewarning patients of side-effects causes a greater number of patients to complain of such effects, or that where patients experience side-effects, forewarning is associated with any less frequent discontinuance of therapy. Compared with a previous study with amitriptyline, the results of this study are much closer to statistical significance. This may be due to the lower overall incidence of side-effects with dothiepin and calls for further work with a larger sample of patients.
D000328:Adult; D003863:Depression / Q000188:drug therapy; D003988:Dibenzothiepins / Q000009:adverse effects*; D004308:Dothiepin / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010349:Patient Compliance
D003988:Dibenzothiepins; D004308:Dothiepin