Table 1.

Overview of previous reviews

	First author	Title	Year of publication	Design	Type of SSRI assessed	Information sources	No. of trials	No. of patients	Published protocol	Assessment of adverse events	Assessment of risk of bias
Reviews concluding that SSRIs have beneficial effect on major depressive disorder	Gibbons et al.	Benefits From Antidepressants: Synthesis of 6-Week Patient-Level Outcomes From Double-blind Placebo-Controlled Randomized Trials of Fluoxetine and Venlafaxine	2012	Patient level meta-analysis	Flouxetine	Eli Lilly and Co	16	3595	No	No	No
	Undurraga et al.	Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trials of Antidepressants for Acute Major Depression: Thirty-Year Meta-Analytic Review	2011	Systematic review	Fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine, citalopram, escitalopram	Medline, CINAH Library, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO	51	5285	No	No	Only publication bias
	Wilson et al.	Antidepressants Versus Placebo for the Depressed Elderly	2001	Cochrane review	Fluoxetine	PsycLIT, MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, CINAHL, SIGLE, Psyndex, National Research Register, Dissertation Abstracts International	2	365	Yes	No	Only allocation concealment
	Aroll et al.	Antidepressants versus placebo for depression in primary care (Review)	2009	Cochrane review	Sertraline, escitalopram, citalopram	CCDANCTR	4	707	Yes	Yes	Only allocation concealment (QRS)
Reviews concluding that SSRIs have no effect on mild to moderat depression but have beneficial effect on severe depression	Fournier et al.	Antidepressant Drug Effects and Depression Severity: A Patient-Level Meta-analysis	2010	Patient level meta-analysis	Paroxetine	PubMed, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library	3	240	No	No	No
	Khan et al.	Severity of Depression and Response to Antidepressants and Placebo: An Analysis of the Food and Drug Administration Database	2002	Systematic review	Fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine	FDA	18	Unclear	No	No	No
Reviews concluding that SSRIs have questionable effect on major depressive disorder	Turner et al.	Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy	2008	Systematic review	Fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine, citalopram, escitalopram	FDA, PubMed, Cochrane Library	38	Unclear	No	No	Only publication bias
	Kirsch et al.	Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration	2008	Systematic review	Fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine, citalopram	FDA, PubMed	21	1708	No	No	Only publication bias
Reviews not showing anything about the effects of SSRIs on major depressive disorder	Moncrieff et al.	Active Placebos Versus Antidepressants for Depression (Review)	2012	Cochrane review	No SSRIs studied, only TCAs	CCDANCTR			Yes