An 82-Year-Old Woman Comes to the Physician Due to Sadness

question 435

Multiple Choice

An 82-year-old woman comes to the physician due to sadness, anxiety, tearfulness, insomnia, and weight loss.  She lies awake at night worrying and no longer has any interest in her usual hobby of playing bridge or visiting her grandchildren.  She has lost 6.8 kg (15 lb) over the past 2 months.  Physical examination and laboratory results, including thyroid function tests, are normal.
Which of the following medications would be best to treat this patient's symptoms?

• A)Amitriptyline
• B)Bupropion
• C)Mirtazapine
• D)Nortriptyline
• E)Olanzapine

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Definitions:

Type I Errors

Incorrectly disapproving a correct null hypothesis, famously labeled as a "false positive."

Cohen's D

A statistical measure used to assess the effect size or magnitude of the difference between two group means.

Effect

The impact or change that results from some action or intervention, often measured in experiments to understand causality.

Cohen's D

A measure of effect size indicating the difference between two means expressed in standard deviation units.