A groundbreaking study led by Dr. David R. A. Coelho at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, has unveiled promising results for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (OCRD) with glutamatergic medications. Published online on January 2 in JAMA Network Open, this study was funded by the Center for Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. The research excluded non-English studies and gray literature, ensuring a focused analysis.
More than 1,300 participants were included in this comprehensive analysis, with a mean age of 31.5 years and a majority of 66% women. The research team assessed 27 double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trials to evaluate symptom improvements in OCRD when treated with glutamatergic medications. These medications were examined as both monotherapy and as an augmentation to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
Results indicated that groups taking glutamatergic medications experienced a large effect size in symptom improvement compared to control groups. The effect size was measured as Cohen d, −0.8; with a highly significant P-value of <.001. In trials focusing specifically on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the medications resulted in a notable mean reduction of −4.17 in Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) scores compared to control treatments, which was also statistically significant with P <.001.
“Our findings, albeit with low certainty, indicate that these medications are associated with significant improvement in OCRD symptoms,”
- The investigators (led by David R. A. Coelho, MD, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston)
The study also highlighted financial support received by two investigators: one from the Jorge Paulo Lemann Fellowship and another from the São Paulo Research Foundation.
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