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Biomedical subjects

Chris Thompson

Publications and source records attributed to Chris Thompson.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

Prevalence of seasonal affective disorder in primary care; a comparison of the seasonal health questionnaire and the seasonal pattern assessment questionnaire.

BACKGROUND: Prevalence rates of SAD suggested by previous studies have ranged from 1 to 12% depending on the diagnostic criteria used. The Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ), a widely used screening tool, has been shown to have low specificity for SAD. The Seasonal Health Questionnaire (SHQ) was designed to better reflect the clinical criteria for SAD and has been shown to have a higher specificity then the SPAQ in a psychiatric outpatient setting. OBJECTIVE: The current study was designed to assess the validity of the SHQ in general practice against systematic research interviews, to compare the sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive values of the SHQ and the SPAQ and to use these data to estimate the prevalence of SAD in primary care. METHODS: 809 subjects in a consecutive series of patients attending Southampton general practices in winter 2000/01 completed the SHQ followed by the SPAQ; 56 were interviewed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM (SCID). RESULTS: The SHQ was more sensitive and specific than the SPAQ and had higher positive and negative predictive values in screening for SAD. The SPAQ indicated a prevalence of SAD of 10.7% (95% CI 8.6-13.1) while the SHQ provided a significantly lower estimate of 5.6% (95% CI 4.2-7.4).

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Onset of action of antidepressants: results of different analyses.

Because the value of antidepressants is hampered by their delay in onset of action, considerable attention has been focused on developing a drug that acts more rapidly. However, although specific studies are now ongoing, there have been no peer-reviewed prospective onset of action trials published in the literature to date. Some data are currently available from post-hoc pooled analyses and numerous methods have been developed for evaluating the onset of action; these include the time to response, the time to onset of therapeutic effect, pattern analysis and survival analyses. Such an analysis of four large-scale, double-blind studies has provided evidence for an earlier onset of action with mirtazapine than with the SSRIs (fluoxetine, paroxetine and citalopram). Significant differences were seen between mirtazapine and the SSRIs after 1 week of treatment. This effect was consistent across the four different methodologies and appears to be due to a specific antidepressant effect rather than an early effect on, for example, sleep. These findings await confirmation from specifically designed prospective onset of action studies.

Adrenergic alpha-Antagonists↗
PubMed2002

Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners and recognition of depression in primary care.

To determine the effect of membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) on recognition of depression, odds ratios, Lowess-smoothed plots, and regression models were produced for recognition rates in a representative sample of 20,818 patient contacts for members and non-members of the RCGP Membership of the RCGP did not appear to convey greater ability to discriminate between depressed and non-depressed patients, but members were more likely to recognise depression in both depressed and non-depressed individuals.

Clinical Competence↗