Triazolam in insomniac family practice patients.

Triazolam, 0.5 mg, a benzodiazepine with hypnotic properties, was compared to secobarbital, 100 mg, and placebo in a 1-wk study conducted with 100 insomniac family practice patients. Considerable sensitivity to differential treatment effects was demonstrated for these family practice patients as well as for a research methodology that combines a crossover design, permitting preference ratings, with a between-patient design. In almost all sleep parameters, assessed with a variety of subjective techniques, triazolam and secobarbital were shown to be significantly more effective than placebo. Triazolam was consistently and often significantly indicated to be a more effective hypnotic, particularly for reducing nocturnal awakening, than secobarbital. Analysis of self-report emotional distress data revealed that present insomniac patients were slightly more emotionally symptomatic than other nonpsychiatric populations. Triazolam was followed by the greatest and secobarbital the least relief of emotional symptoms and triazolam emerged as an especially effective hypnotic for initially more depressed insomniac patients. Present findings suggest that type and degree of emotional symptomatology may affect the response of insomniac patients to hypnotics.

Emotional symptomatology in obese patients treated with fenfluramine and dextroamphetamine.

Emotional sympomatology data on 78 obese females treated for 3 weeks with fenfluramine, dextroamphetamine, or placebo were evaluated. These obese females were shown to be considerably less emotionally disturbed than neurotic females, and similar in emotional symptomatology to other females seeing physicians for nonpsychiatric complaints. Even within these marginally sympatomatic patients, fenfluramine and dextroamphetamine were significantly more effective than placebo in reducing anxious, depressive, and anxious-depressive symptomatology. Fenfluramine was particularly effective in alleviating anxiety in patients who were initially higher in anxiety. Most important, fenfluramine produced significantly greater weight loss than dextroamphetamine in patients with higher levels of anxiety and depression, while dextroamphetamine was an especially effective anorexic in low anxious patients. Differences in initial anxiety and depression, even within relatively normal patients, may well affect results obtained with fenfluramine and dextroamphetamine in the short-term treatment of obesity.