Sorry to have not kept up, but let's get back at it, shall we?
Having mentioned the Milestones on Treatment Planning, and Clinical Practice Guidelines, I thought I'd post a couple of interesting meta-analyses re: anti-depressant and anti-manic medications:
Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 12 new-generation antidepressants: a multiple-treatments meta-analysis. Cipriani, et al., Lancet 373: 746-58. 2009
Comparative efficacy and acceptability of antimanic drugs in acute mania: a multiple-treatments meta-analysis. Cipriani, et al., Lancet 378:1306-15. 2011.
These aren't easy reading, but are worth digging into, as ultimately Clinical Practice Guidelines end up being based on them. Perhaps the first thing to notice is how the meta-analysis is done: seeking a body of literature that asks the questions regarding comparisons of different treatments, then choosing randomized controlled trials to be grouped together to gain the best possible picture of how anti-depressants stack up against one another. There are a lot of numbers here--does the "bottom line" surprise you? I felt that the results were actually quite similar to the "daily clinical experience"-based approaches that we tend to use in day-to-day practice. Note also the authors' explicit comments regarding possible sources of bias--specifically the financial incentives of study authors in the cases where data is provided from industry-sponsored studies.
Google Drive links--
Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 12 new-generation antidepressants
Comparative efficacy and acceptability of antimanic drugs in acute mania
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