Multivariate symptom analysis related to response to lorazepam treatment
Current Medical Research and Opinion
|January 1, 1979
Summary
This study investigated lorazepam effectiveness in psychiatric patients. Results show that anxiety, phobic, and psychosomatic symptoms strongly predict positive responses to lorazepam treatment.
Area of Science:
- Psychiatry
- Clinical Psychology
- Pharmacology
Background:
- Inter-trial variability exists in reported patient benefits from the anxiolytic agent lorazepam.
- Many patients in the study had treatment-resistant, moderate-to-severe symptoms and comorbid diagnoses.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explain the significant inter-trial differences in lorazepam's reported efficacy.
- To identify specific symptom clusters correlating with therapeutic response to lorazepam.
Main Methods:
- Statistical analysis of psychiatric symptom questionnaire scores from 69 out-patients before and after lorazepam treatment.
- Multivariate analysis examined the relationship between 6 symptom clusters and therapeutic response.
Main Results:
- Forty out of 69 patients showed a favorable response to lorazepam.
- High correlations were found between response to lorazepam and anxiety, phobic, and psychosomatic symptom scores.
- Depression scores showed borderline significance; hysteria and obsessionality scores showed poor correlation with response.
Conclusions:
- Patient diagnostic composition may explain inter-trial differences in lorazepam efficacy.
- Lorazepam may be particularly effective for patients with prominent anxiety, phobic, and psychosomatic symptoms.
- Further research into patient heterogeneity is warranted to optimize anxiolytic treatment selection.
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