A comparison of antidepressant medications in neurotic and psychotic patients

The responses of 225 newly hospitalized depressed women to amitriptyline hydrochloride, imipramine hydrochloride, and thioridazine were compared with particular reference to the psychotic-neurotic distinction. During the first week, more psychotic patients required sedation and more antidepressant medication than did neurotic patients. All treatment groups showed improvement in psychometric criteria after the first week. There was decreasing improvement through the successive weeks, and no statistically significant differences among treatments emerged. Responses of the neurotic group were superior to those of the psychotic group, but there was no psychometric evidence of interaction between diagnostic classification and treatment effect. The results do not support the hypothesis that any one of these treatments is preferable for neurotic patients or for psychotic patients.