ABSTRACT
For those who become involved in clinical trials conducted to assess the efficacy of psychotropic drugs, it very quickly becomes apparent that a broad range of factors other than the pharmacological properties of the drugs themselves affect or modify treatment. A double-blind, placebo-controlled drug trial can readily demonstrate that an anxiolytic as effective as chlordiazepoxide or diazepam induces a significantly greater amount of symptom ameliorization than does placebo in a group with specifiedly appropriate target symptomatology. However, the degree of symptom reduction varies greatly both in the group treated with an active agent and in the placebo group. Further, side effects are encountered more frequently in the active treatment group than in the control group. Still, the range of severity of the side effects of which drug-treated patients complain is considerable and the extent to which patients are able to tolerate or accept side effects at a given level of severity varies widely.
