Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T16:35:00.001Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Labelling and drug effects in the treatment of neurotic affective disorders: an experimental investigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Clive Hyde  and
David Goldberg
Clive Hyde*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of South Manchester, Manchester
David Goldberg
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of South Manchester, Manchester
*
1Address for correspondence Dr Clive Hyde, Department of Psychiatry. University Hospital of South Manchester, West Didsbury, Manchester M20 8LR.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

This study investigates the effects of assigned diagnostic labels, with their accompanying predictions of therapeutic response, and prescribed psychotropic drugs. It was thought that such ‘labelling’ effects might be important in ambiguous situations, such as neurotic anxiety–depressive states, where diagnoses of ‘reactive depression’ or ‘anxiety state’ might justifiably be made and treatment with either diazepam or nortripyline legitimately given. The depression label and its concomitant two-weekly prediction of improvement with antidepressants produced a set towards slower response with higher self-report depression. Nortriptyline produced significantly more improvement in self-report depression than diazepam in the first 2 weeks of treatment. No significant interaction effects were detected between diagnosis or drug. One month after the initial diagnostic evaluation there were no significant effects from either diagnostic label or drug.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , May 1983 , pp. 399 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bannister, D., Salmon, P. & Lieberman, D. M. (1964). Diagnosis – treatment relationships in psychiatry. British Journal of Psychiatry 110, 726–732.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bass, B. M. (1961). Some recent studies in social acquiescence. Psychology Report 9, 447–451.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chesrow, E. J., Kapfitz, S. E. & Breme, J. T. (1964). Nortriptyline for the treatment of chronically ill and geriatric patients. Journal of the American Geriatric Society 12, 271–277.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cochran, W. G. & Cox, G. M. (1957). Experimental Design, pp. 82–89. Wiley: New York.Google Scholar
Derogatis, L. R., Lipman, R. S. & Covi, L. (1973). SCL–90: an outpatient psychiatric rating scale. Psychopharmacology Bulletin 9, No. I, 01 US Public Health Service: Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Fisher, S. & Fisher, R. L. (1963). Placebo response and acquiescence. Psychopharmacologia (Berlin) 4, 298–301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Freeman, H. L., Bourne, M. S. & Schiff, A. A. (1974). The treatment of anxious/depressive States. Journal of International Medical Research 2, 197–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
General Practice Research Unit (1970). A Manual For Use in Conjunction with the Standardised Psychiatric Interview (2nd edn). Institute of Psychiatry: London.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P. & Blackwell, B. (1970). Psychiatric illness in general practice. British Medical Journal ii, 439–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gove, W. R. (1975). Labelling and mental illness. In The Labelling of Deviance (ed. Gove, W. R.), pp. 35–81. John Wiley & Sons: New York.Google Scholar
Kitsuse, J. I. (1975). The new concept of deviance and its critics. In The Labelling of Deviance (ed. Gove, W. R.), pp. 273–285. John Wiley & Sons: New York.Google Scholar
McNair, D. M., Fisher, S. & Sussman, C. (1970). Persistence of a drug–personality interaction in psychiatric out-patients. Journal of Psychiatric Research 7, 299–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menninger, K. (1948). Changing concepts of disease. Annals of Internal Medicine 29, 318–332.Google ScholarPubMed
Petroni, F. & Griffin, C. (1969). Labelling and psychiatry: perspectives in need of data. Social Science and Medicine 3, 239–247.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prusoff, B. A. & Klerman, G. L. (1974). Differentiating depressed from anxious neurotic out-patients. Archives of General Psychiatry 30, 302–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, M., Gurney, C. & Garside, R. F. (1972). Studies in the classification of affective disorders: the relationship between anxiety states and depressive illness. I. British Journal of Psychiatry 121, 147–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rickels, K. (ed.) (1968). Non-Specfic Factors in Drug Therapy. Charles C. Thomas: Springfield, Ill.Google Scholar
Rickels, K. & Downing, R. W. (1978). Non-specific factors and their interaction with psychological treatment in pharmacotherapy. In Psychopharmacology: A Generation of Progress (ed. Lipton, M. A., DiMascio, A. and Killam, K. F.), pp. 1419–1428. Raven Press: New York.Google Scholar
Scott, R. A. (1970). The construction of conceptions of stigma by professional experts. In Deviance and Respectability (ed. Douglas, J. R.), pp. 352–361. Basic Books: New York.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (1978). International Classification of Diseases: Mental Disorders (9th edn). WHO: Geneva.Google Scholar