Rickles 2005.
| Methods | Randomised trial | |
| Participants | 63 patients presenting with new antidepressant prescriptions (intervention 31; control 32)
Health professional (delivering intervention): 14
Practice: 8 Community pharmacies within a large managed care organization Wisconsin, USA Year of study: October 2001 to September 2002. |
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| Interventions | Pharmacist provided monthly telephone‐based education on antidepressant use and goal of therapy and monitoring of adverse effects and adherence, vs usual care. Length of the intervention: 19, 12, and 11 minutes for first, second, and third phone call, respectively Number of interventions: 3 during 3 months |
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| Outcomes | > 50% improvement in depression symptoms measured with Beck Depression Inventory‐II (BDI‐II) | |
| Notes | Past use of psychiatric medications was different between groups at baseline.
Study was powered to detect compliance outcomes only. Funding source: Sonderegger Research Center and predoctoral National Research Service Award through the National Institute of Mental Health. Conflict of interest: None stated |
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| Risk of bias | ||
| Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) | Low risk | Quote: "When a patient was enrolled from that site, the researcher would randomly select a number out of the envelope" |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Low risk | Assignment sealed in an envelope; envelope not reported as "opaque". Experimenters had no knowledge of forthcoming allocations. |
| Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All Outcomes/Outcome 1 | Low risk | Experimenters were unblinded but given that control participants received no intervention (phone call) bias is unlikely. |
| Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All Outcomes/Outcome 1 | High risk | Participants were unblinded and this may have influenced self‐reported responses. |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes | Low risk | Between group attrition < 10% |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) | Low risk | All major outcome reported |
| Other bias | Unclear risk | Despite randomisation, intervention patients were more likely than usual‐care patients to have a history of psychotropic medication use. |