Does St John's Wort Have a Significant Effect in Treating Major

question 26

Multiple Choice

Does St. John's wort have a significant effect in treating major depression? A study looked at 340 adult outpatients suffering from major depression as measured by their HAM-D score, randomly assigning each subject to either a placebo, St. John's wort, or a second active treatment for comparison.
The St. John's wort study doesn't show that St. John's wort is equivalent to a placebo. If the researchers still believe in the effectiveness of St. John's wort in treating depression, how might they change their study?

• A) They should carefully choose which patients get the placebo and which get St. John's wort to guarantee significant results.
• B) They should increase the sample size.
• C) They should decrease the sample size.
• D) They shouldn't have a placebo group; they should give all the subjects the St. John's wort so they can measure its effect more precisely.

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