Intervention trial for late life depression defended

BMJ 1999;319:1068 ( 16 October )

Letters

Intervention trial for late life depression defended

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ We would like to respond to several criticisms of our study¹ raised in Haynes's editorial² and in Deeks and Juszczak'scommentary.³

Haynes argues that our study is limited by patients refusing to participate or dropping out. In the context of studies inelderly people, we think that our refusal and follow up rateswere reasonable. It is difficult to recruit elderly people intoresearch studies⁴ and maintain their participation. Considerabledrop out rates were expected because our sample consisted of frailolder people, many of whom died or became too ill toparticipate.

Haynes considers that our difficulty in recruiting and retaining doctors and patients compromised our community based intervention.Although maximising participation is important, the practicaldifficulties of fully engaging a community of busy doctors andfrail elderly people needs acknowledgment. The educational programmewas attended by the general practitioners of 62% of the participantsin the . . . [Full text of this article]

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Multifaceted shared care intervention for late life depression in residential care: randomised controlled trial • Commentary: Beyond the boundary for a randomised controlled trial?: Robert H Llewellyn-Jones, Karen A Baikie, Heather Smithers, Jasmine Cohen, John Snowdon, Chris C Tennant, Jonathan J Deeks, and Edmund Juszczak
BMJ 1999 319: 676-682. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]