Acute interventions for aggression and agitation in psychosis: study protocol for a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Introduction: Individuals with psychosis may access emergency services due to aggression and agitation. When the de-escalation technique fails to achieve tranquillisation, several pharmacological options are available. However, evidence on which intervention to prefer in terms of efficacy and tolerability to achieve resolution of the acute episode (ie, rapid tranquillisation) of aggression and agitation is currently fragmentary.Methods and analysis: We will include all randomised controlled trials comparing drugs or drug combinations or placebo for aggression or agitation episodes in adult individuals with psychosis. We will include individuals with psychosis (eg, schizophrenia and related disorders, bipolar disorder with psychotic symptoms, psychotic depression) but not substance or medication-induced psychosis or psychosis due to another medical condition. Our primary outcomes are the change in aggression or agitation scores within few hours since the administration of the intervention (efficacy outcome) and the proportion of participants who dropped out due to adverse effects (tolerability outcome). We will retrieve relevant studies from the register of studies of the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group. Also, we will run additional searches on CENTRAL, Embase and PubMed to retrieve potentially eligible studies focusing on other psychiatric diagnoses than those in the schizophrenia spectrum. We will conduct a random-effects network meta-analysis (NMA) for primary and secondary outcomes. In case of rare events of dichotomous outcomes, a common-effect Mantel-Haenszel NMA will be used instead. We will use the surface under the cumulative ranking curve and the mean ranks to rank all available treatments. Local and global methods of evaluation of inconsistency will be employed. Quality of evidence contributing to network estimates of the main outcomes will also be assessed with Confidence in Network Meta-Analysis.Ethics and dissemination: This study does not require ethical approval. We will disseminate our findings by publishing results in a peer-reviewed journal.PROSPERO registration number CRD42019137945

An investigation of the impact of using different methods for network meta-analysis: a protocol for an empirical evaluation.

BACKGROUND: Network meta-analysis, a method to synthesise evidence from multiple treatments, has increased in popularity in the past decade. Two broad approaches are available to synthesise data across networks, namely, arm- and contrast-synthesis models, with a range of models that can be fitted within each. There has been recent debate about the validity of the arm-synthesis models, but to date, there has been limited empirical evaluation comparing results using the methods applied to a large number of networks. We aim to address this gap through the re-analysis of a large cohort of published networks of interventions using a range of network meta-analysis methods. METHODS: We will include a subset of networks from a database of network meta-analyses of randomised trials that have been identified and curated from the published literature. The subset of networks will include those where the primary outcome is binary, the number of events and participants are reported for each direct comparison, and there is no evidence of inconsistency in the network. We will re-analyse the networks using three contrast-synthesis methods and two arm-synthesis methods. We will compare the estimated treatment effects, their standard errors, treatment hierarchy based on the surface under the cumulative ranking (SUCRA) curve, the SUCRA value, and the between-trial heterogeneity variance across the network meta-analysis methods. We will investigate whether differences in the results are affected by network characteristics and baseline risk. DISCUSSION: The results of this study will inform whether, in practice, the choice of network meta-analysis method matters, and if it does, in what situations differences in the results between methods might arise. The results from this research might also inform future simulation studies

Meta-Analysis of the Immunogenicity and Tolerability of Pandemic Influenza A 2009 (H1N1) Vaccines

Background: Although the 2009 (H1N1) influenza pandemic officially ended in August 2010, the virus will probably circulate in future years. Several types of H1N1 vaccines have been tested including various dosages and adjuvants, and meta-analysis is needed to identify the best formulation. Methods: We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, and nine clinical trial registries to April 2011, in any language for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on healthy children, adolescents, adults and the elderly. Primary outcome was the seroconversion rate according to hemagglutinination-inhibition (HI); secondary outcomes were adverse events. For the primary outcome, we used head-to-head meta-analysis and multiple-treatments meta-analysis. Results: Eighteen RCTs could be included in all primary analyses, for a total of 76 arms (16,725 subjects). After 2 doses, all 2009 H1N1 split/subunit inactivated vaccines were highly immunogenic and overcome CPMP seroconversion criteria. After 1 dose only, all split/subunit vaccines induced a satisfactory immunogenicity (> = 70%) in adults and adolescents, while only some formulations showed acceptable results for children and elderly (non-adjuvanted at high-doses and oil-in-water adjuvanted vaccines). Vaccines with oil-in-water adjuvants were more immunogenic than both nonadjuvanted and aluminum-adjuvanted vaccines at equal doses and their immunogenicity at doses < = 6 μg (even with as little as 1.875 μg of hemagglutinin antigen) was not significantly lower than that achieved after higher doses. Finally, the rate of serious vaccine-related adverse events was low for all 2009 H1N1 vaccines (3 cases, resolved in 10 days, out of 22826 vaccinated subjects). However, mild to moderate adverse reactions were more (and very) frequent for oil-in-water adjuvanted vaccines. Conclusions: Several one-dose formulations might be valid for future vaccines, but 2 doses may be needed for children, especially if a low-dose non-adjuvanted vaccine is used. Given that 15 RCTs were sponsored by vaccine manufacturers, future trials sponsored by non-industry agencies and comparing vaccines using different types of adjuvants are needed

Trace amine-associated receptor 1 (TAAR1) agonists for psychosis: protocol for a living systematic review and meta-analysis of human and non-human studies

Background: There is an urgent need to develop more effective and safer antipsychotics beyond dopamine 2 receptor antagonists. An emerging and promising approach is TAAR1 agonism. Therefore, we will conduct a living systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesize and triangulate the evidence from preclinical animal experiments and clinical studies on the efficacy, safety, and underlying mechanism of action of TAAR1 agonism for psychosis. Methods: Independent searches will be conducted in multiple electronic databases to identify clinical and animal experimental studies comparing TAAR1 agonists with licensed antipsychotics or other control conditions in individuals with psychosis or animal models for psychosis, respectively. The primary outcomes will be overall psychotic symptoms and their behavioural proxies in animals. Secondary outcomes will include side effects and neurobiological measures. Two independent reviewers will conduct study selection, data extraction using predefined forms, and risk of bias assessment using suitable tools based on the study design. Ontologies will be developed to facilitate study identification and data extraction. Data from clinical and animal studies will be synthesized separately using random-effects meta-analysis if appropriate, or synthesis without meta-analysis. Study characteristics will be investigated as potential sources of heterogeneity. Confidence in the evidence for each outcome and source of evidence will be evaluated, considering the summary of the association, potential concerns regarding internal and external validity, and reporting biases. When multiple sources of evidence are available for an outcome, an overall conclusion will be drawn in a triangulation meeting involving a multidisciplinary team of experts. We plan trimonthly updates of the review, and any modifications in the protocol will be documented. The review will be co-produced by multiple stakeholders aiming to produce impactful and relevant results and bridge the gap between preclinical and clinical research on psychosis

Trace amine-associated receptor 1 (TAAR1) agonists for psychosis:protocol for a living systematic review and meta-analysis of human and non-human studies

BACKGROUND: There is an urgent need to develop more effective and safer antipsychotics beyond dopamine 2 receptor antagonists. An emerging and promising approach is TAAR1 agonism. Therefore, we will conduct a living systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesize and triangulate the evidence from preclinical animal experiments and clinical studies on the efficacy, safety, and underlying mechanism of action of TAAR1 agonism for psychosis.METHODS: Independent searches will be conducted in multiple electronic databases to identify clinical and animal experimental studies comparing TAAR1 agonists with licensed antipsychotics or other control conditions in individuals with psychosis or animal models for psychosis, respectively. The primary outcomes will be overall psychotic symptoms and their behavioural proxies in animals. Secondary outcomes will include side effects and neurobiological measures. Two independent reviewers will conduct study selection, data extraction using predefined forms, and risk of bias assessment using suitable tools based on the study design. Ontologies will be developed to facilitate study identification and data extraction. Data from clinical and animal studies will be synthesized separately using random-effects meta-analysis if appropriate, or synthesis without meta-analysis. Study characteristics will be investigated as potential sources of heterogeneity. Confidence in the evidence for each outcome and source of evidence will be evaluated, considering the summary of the association, potential concerns regarding internal and external validity, and reporting biases. When multiple sources of evidence are available for an outcome, an overall conclusion will be drawn in a triangulation meeting involving a multidisciplinary team of experts. We plan trimonthly updates of the review, and any modifications in the protocol will be documented. The review will be co-produced by multiple stakeholders aiming to produce impactful and relevant results and bridge the gap between preclinical and clinical research on psychosis.PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO-ID: CRD42023451628.</p

Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder:a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Background Major depressive disorder is one of the most common, burdensome and costly psychiatric disorders worldwide in adults. Both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments are available, however, because of lack of resources, antidepressants are used more frequently. Prescription of these agents should be informed by the best available evidence. Consequently, we aimed to update and expand our previous work to compare and rank antidepressants for major depressive disorder in adults. Methods We searched Cochrane CENTRAL, CINAHL, EMBASE, LiLACS, MEDLINE, PSYCINFO, regulatory agencies' websites, and international registers for published and unpublished, double-blind randomised controlled trials up to January 8th 2016, for the acute treatment of major depressive disorder diagnosed according to standard operationalised criteria. We included placebo-controlled and head-to-head trials of 21 antidepressants in adults. We assessed the certainty of evidence using GRADE. Primary outcomes were efficacy (response rate) and acceptability (discontinuations due to any cause). Secondary outcomes included symptom severity, remission rate and discontinuations due to adverse events. We estimated summary odds ratios (OR) and standardised mean differences (with 95% credibility intervals - 95% CrIs) using pairwise and network meta-analysis with random effects. This study is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42012002291). Findings We included 522 trials with 116,477 participants. The certainty of evidence was moderate to very low. In terms of efficacy, all antidepressants were more effective than placebo, with OR ranging between 2·13 (95% CrI 1·89 to 2·41) for amitriptyline and 1·38 (95% CrI 1·16 to 1·63) for reboxetine. For acceptability, agomelatine and fluoxetine were associated with fewer dropouts than placebo (OR 0·84, 95% CrI 0·72 to 0·97 and 0·88, 95% CrI 0·80 to 0·96, respectively), while clomipramine was worse than placebo (OR 1.31, 95% CrI 1·01 to 1·68). When all trials were considered, differences in OR between antidepressants ranged from 1·15 (95% CrI 1·04 to 1·27) to 1·55 (95% CrI 1·27 to 1·91) for efficacy and from 0.64 (95% CrI 0·48 to 0·86) to 0.85 (95% CrI 0·75 to 0·96) for acceptability, with wide confidence intervals on most of the comparative analyses. In head-to-head studies, agomelatine, amitriptyline, escitalopram, mirtazapine, paroxetine, sertraline, venlafaxine and vortioxetine were more effective than other antidepressants (OR range: 1.12 [95% CrI 1·00 to 1·32] to 1.96 [95% CrI 1·09 to 3·57]), while fluoxetine, reboxetine and trazodone were the least efficacious drugs (OR range: 0.51 [95% CrI 0·72 to 0·97] to 0.89 [95% CrI 0·72 to 0·97]). For acceptability, agomelatine, citalopram, escitalopram, fluoxetine, sertraline and vortioxetine were the best drugs (OR range: 0.42 [95% CrI 0·72 to 0·97] to 0.81 [95% CrI 0·72 to 0·97]), while amitriptyline, clomipramine, duloxetine, fluvoxamine, reboxetine, trazodone and venlafaxine had the highest dropout rates (OR range: 1.23 [95% CrI 1·00 to 1·32] to 2.37 [95% CrI 1·00 to 1·32]). Interpretation All antidepressants were more efficacious than placebo in adults with major depressive disorder. Smaller differences between active drugs were found when placebo-controlled trials were included in the analysis, while there was more variability in efficacy and rate of drop out in head-to-head trials. These results should serve evidence-based practice and inform patients, physicians, guideline developers and policy-makers on the relative merits of the different antidepressants.</p

Antidepressant Prescriptions Have Not Fully Reflected Evolving Evidence from Cumulative Network Meta-analyses and Guideline Recommendations.

OBJECTIVE This study compares three major elements of evidence-based medicine (EBM) practices, namely evidence synthesis, clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) and real-world prescriptions in the US, regarding antidepressant treatments of major depression over the past three decades. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING We conducted network meta-analyses (NMAs) of antidepressants every 5 years up to 2016 based on a comprehensive dataset of double-blind randomized controlled trials. We identified CPGs and extracted their recommendations. We surveyed the prescriptions in the US at 5-yearly intervals up to 2015. RESULTS Most drugs recommended by CPGs presented favorable performance in efficacy and acceptability in NMAs. However, CPG recommendations were often in terms of drug classes rather than individual drugs, while NMAs suggested distinctive difference between drugs within the same class. The update intervals of all CPGs were longer than 5 years. All the antidepressants prescribed frequently in the US were recommended by CPGs. However, changes in prescriptions did not correspond to alterations in CPGs nor to apparent changes in the effects indicated by NMAs. Many factors including marketing efforts, regulations or patient values may have played a role. CONCLUSIONS Enhancements including accelerating CPG updates and monitoring the impact of marketing on prescriptions should be considered in future EBM implementation

Combining endpoint and change data did not affect the summary standardised mean difference in pairwise and network meta-analyses: An empirical study in depression.

When studies use different scales to measure continuous outcomes, standardised mean differences (SMD) are required to meta-analyse the data. However, outcomes are often reported as endpoint or change from baseline scores. Combining corresponding SMDs can be problematic and available guidance advises against this practice. We aimed to examine the impact of combining the two types of SMD in meta-analyses of depression severity. We used individual participant data on pharmacological interventions (89 studies, 27,409 participants) and internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT; 61 studies, 13,687 participants) for depression to compare endpoint and change from baseline SMDs at the study level. Next, we performed pairwise (PWMA) and network meta-analyses (NMA) using endpoint SMDs, change from baseline SMDs, or a mixture of the two. Study-specific SMDs calculated from endpoint and change from baseline data were largely similar, although for iCBT interventions 25% of the studies at 3 months were associated with important differences between study-specific SMDs (median 0.01, IQR -0.10, 0.13) especially in smaller trials with baseline imbalances. However, when pooled, the differences between endpoint and change SMDs were negligible. Pooling only the more favourable of the two SMDs did not materially affect meta-analyses, resulting in differences of pooled SMDs up to 0.05 and 0.13 in the pharmacological and iCBT datasets, respectively. Our findings have implications for meta-analyses in depression, where we showed that the choice between endpoint and change scores for estimating SMDs had immaterial impact on summary meta-analytic estimates. Future studies should replicate and extend our analyses to fields other than depression

Optimal dose of aripiprazole for augmentation therapy of antidepressant-refractory depression: preliminary findings based on a systematic review and dose-effect meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Aripiprazole augmentation is proven effective for antidepressant-refractory depression, but its licensed dose range is wide and optimal dosage remains unclear. AIMS To find the optimal dosage of aripiprazole augmentation. METHOD Multiple electronic databases were searched (from inception to 16 February 2021) to identify all assessor-masked randomised controlled trials evaluating aripiprazole augmentation therapy in adults (≥18 years old, both genders) with major depressive disorder showing inadequate response to at least one antidepressant treatment. A random-effects, one-stage dose-effect meta-analysis with restricted cubic splines was conducted. Outcomes were efficacy (treatment response: ≥50% reduction in depression severity), tolerability (drop-out due to adverse effects) and acceptability (drop-out for any reason) after 8 weeks of treatment (range 4-12 weeks). RESULTS Ten studies met the inclusion criteria. All were individually randomised, placebo-controlled, multi-centre, parallel studies including 2625 participants in total. The maximum target dose-efficacy curve showed an increase up to doses between 2 mg (odds ratio OR = 1.46, 95% CI 1.15-1.85) and 5 mg (OR = 1.93, 95% CI 1.33-2.81), and then a non-increasing trend through the higher licensed doses up to 20 mg (OR = 1.90, 95% CI 1.52-2.37). Tolerability showed a similar trend with greater uncertainty. Acceptability showed no significant difference through the examined dose range. Certainty of evidence was low to moderate. CONCLUSIONS Low-dose aripiprazole as augmentation treatment might achieve the optimal balance between efficacy, tolerability and acceptability in the acute treatment of antidepressant-refractory depression. However, the small number of included studies and the overall moderate to high risk of bias seriously compromise the reliability of the results. Further research is required to investigate the benefits of low versus high dose