Failure of placebo groups to control for nonspecific events in therapy outcome research.

Behavorial Parent Training and Cognitive-Behavioral Self-Control Therapy With ADD-H Children: Comparative and Combined Effects

“…Given our purposes, the serious and debilitating nature of ADD-H, and the established efficacy of behavioral parent training (for reviews, see Berkowitz & Graziano, 1972;Graziano, 1977;Johnson & Katz, 1973;Moreland, Schwebel, Beck, &Wells, 1982;Pawlicki, 1970;Wells &Forehand, 1980), we felt it not only illogical but ethically questionable to include a no-treatment control group in the experimental design (see 09Leary & Borkovec, 1978;Wilkins, 1983). Hence, we utilized the "best available treatment" control approach, wherein newer treatments are compared to the best (known) available treatment (O'Leary & Borkovec, 1978).…”

Disagreement between Therapist Raters and Independent Evaluators in a Controlled Clinical Trial of Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depressed Pregnant Women

“…2,21,27 Treatment response ratings in psychotherapy research that are independent of knowledge of treatment content must be made by anonymous participation in treatment with an independent clinical evaluator who is blinded to the type of psychotherapy that the patient is receiving. 28 Accordingly outcome research for psychological interventions on the inclusion of IEs who are clinicians trained in evidence-based assessment should be used to evaluate clinical outcomes. As subjective end points (changes in clinical ratings) are the rule in psychiatric studies, blinding of RCTs is considered necessary in psychiatric treatment research.…”

Additive Effects of Behavioral Parent Training and Self-Control Therapy With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disordered Children

“…Given our purposes, the serious and debilitating nature of ADHD, and the established efficacy of behavioral parent training (for reviews, see Graziano, 1977;Moreland, Schwebel, Beck, & Wells, 1982), we felt it not only illogical but ethically questionable to include a no-treatment control group in the experimental design (see O'Leary & Borkovec, 1978;Wilkins, 1983). Hence, we utilized the "best available treatment7'control approach, wherein newer treatments are compared to the best (known) available treatment (O'Leary & Borkavec, 1978).…”