Doxepin and diazepam in general practice and hospital clinic neurotic patients: A collaborative controlled study

Tricyclic therapy of the DSM-III anxiety disorders: a review with implications for further research

Existing data suggests dramatic efficacy for all tested tricyclics in disorders involving spontaneous panic attacks; moderate efficacy for clomipramine but not other tricyclics in obsessive-compulsive patients; possible, but as yet not well established, tricyclic efficacy in generalized anxiety; and lack of efficacy in simple phobias. Further studies in all DSM-III Anxiety Disorders are both warranted and required to answer the nosological, pathophysiological and treatment questions raised by these findings.

Drug-specific EEG frequency spectra and their time courses produced in the cat by antidepressants and a benzodiazepine

The results of the tricyclic antidepressants imipramine, desipramine and doxepin and the anti-anxiety agent diazepam were tested for their effects on the frequency distribution of spontaneous brain electrical activity (EEG) in the cat. Multivariate statistical techniques were employed to make an objective and quantitative assessment of the results of broad-band frequency analysis in terms of certain dose-related and drug-specific variables. In spite of several clinical and pharmacological differences in their properties, the antidepressants produced remarkably similar profiles of frequency change which were unrelated to those produced by diazepam.

The medication seminar and primary care education

This paper defines the need to provide postgraduate psychiatric education to primary care physicians, as well as the need to provide psychiatrists with teaching experiences in the primary care setting. Two psychiatrists in rural New England developed and administered, over an eight-month period, a Balint-type seminar on psychotropic medications, designed to emphasize experiential and two-way learning. The process of the seminar reflected the special problems encountered in post-graduate education of physicians in a rural area. The impact on the instructors and participants had implications for the design and development of future educational programs in both psychiatry and primary care.

Benzodiazepines in the treatment of depressive, borderline personality, and schizophrenic disorders

1 The use of benzodiazepines in the treatment of depression, borderline states, and schizophrenia is reviewed.

2 The evidence indicates that any effect the benzodiazepines have in depressed, borderline, or schizophrenic patients is anxiolytic and not specific to the disease state.

3 A strategy is presented for determining the therapeutic range of the benzodiazepines in each specific disorder.

Sedative properties of doxepin in comparison with diazepam

Doxepin (Quitaxon) at doses of 25, 50, and 75 mg was compared with diazepam 7.5, 15, and 22.5 mg, using as variables the percentage lowering of Critical Flicker Fusion (CFF) and the self-estimated degree of drowsiness. Single doses were given, and repeated effect determinations were made over 6 h. Clear dose-effect relations could be demonstrated. The two drugs differed in speed and duration of action and in steepness of effect increase with dose. Although there were good correlations between CFF effect and subjective drowsiness, it seemed that the two methods interrelated somewhat differently in the different types of drug. CFF was a more stable and reliable method than the subjective estimation of drowsiness. However, when comparing drugs belonging to different classes, both methods preferably should be used together.