Cognitive improvements with antipsychotics: real or practice effect?
C. Barbui and A. Cipriani
Evid Based Ment Health 2008
11: 42.
web only references 11/2/42
Comparing change in outcome scores between groups of individuals who were being treated for an illness and healthy controls is not ideal. However, the researchers could not include a group of people with first episode schizophrenia who received placebo or no treatment for ethical reasons, and they acknowledge that their study cannot prove that the improvements seen in cognition with antipsychotics are mainly due to the practice effect, but can provide circumstantial evidence. As the researchers note, the selection of one drug over another may be made based on their antipsychotic effects, not just the effects on cognition.
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