Module 8 – Treating Depression Lab Part 1

Learn by Doing

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Context

Clinical depression is a recurrent illness requiring treatment and often hospitalization. Nearly 50% of people who have an episode of major depression will have a recurrence within 2-3 years. Being able to prevent the recurrence of depression in people who are at risk for the disease would go a long way to alleviate the pain and suffering of patients.

During the 1980’s the federal government, through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), sponsored a large clinical trial to evaluate two drugs for depression. There were 3 treatment groups. Patients received either Imipramine (Imip), Lithium (Li), or a Placebo (Pl). Researchers randomly assigned patients to one of the 3 treatment groups and followed them for 2-4 years to track any recurrences of depression.
(Prien et al., Archives of General Psychiatry, 1984).

Variables

• Hospt: Which hospital the patient was from: Labeled 1, 2, 3, 5 or 6
• Treat: 0=Lithium; 1=Imipramine; 2=Placebo
• Outcome: 0=Success 1=Failure (recurrence of depression)
• Time: Number of weeks until a recurrence (if outcome=1) or until study ended (if outcome=0)
• AcuteT: How long the patient was depressed before the start of the current study, measured in days
• Age: Age in years
• Gender: 1=Female 2=Male

Data

Download the depression datafile (as always, if a login box opens, just close it and then download the file). (directions)

Upload the datafile in StatCrunch. (directions)

Prompt

In this quiz, you’ll explore the depressiondatafile in StatCrunch and familiarize yourself with the first question related to this study. In the next activity you’ll use StatCrunch to investigate the first question.

Flag this QuestionQuestion 11.3 pts

Examine the spreadsheet of data in StatCrunch. Out of the first ten individuals in the datafile, how many had a recurrence of depression during the study?

Flag this QuestionQuestion 21.4 pts

Examine the spreadsheet of data in StatCrunch. Out of the first ten individuals in the datafile who were assigned to the Lithium treatment group, how many had a recurrence of depression during the study?

Flag this QuestionQuestion 31.3 pts

Examine the spreadsheet of data in StatCrunch. How many days was the first male in the datafile depressed before the start of the study?

Flag this QuestionQuestion 46 pts

Here is the first research question related to the study:

Which of the drugs (if either) was more successful in preventing the recurrence of depression relative to the placebo?

The explanatory variable is