[
 {
  "nct": "NCT00118404",
  "eligible": true,
  "exclusion_reason": null,
  "comparisons": [
   {
    "antidepressant_groups": [
     "EG000"
    ],
    "placebo_groups": [
     "EG002"
    ],
    "molecules": [
     "fluoxetine"
    ],
    "background": "acute-phase cognitive therapy before the continuation phase (all participants)",
    "combination": null
   }
  ],
  "design": "other",
  "indication": "depressive",
  "indication_note": "Recurrent depression; preventing relapse after acute-phase cognitive therapy.",
  "note": "Design other: everyone had 12 weeks of acute-phase cognitive therapy, and fluoxetine or pill placebo started only in the prophylactic continuation phase after it, so the drug wasn't randomized at the start and no one took it before (not a withdrawal). Continuation cognitive therapy (EG001) left out. EG000 and EG002 have titles and descriptions that conflict (the descriptions look swapped); coded by title, so check the direction.",
  "reason": "Both codings agree on the comparison; `acute` needs participants randomized at the start to the antidepressant or placebo and `randomized_withdrawal` needs the antidepressant taken before randomization, and this CT lead-in followed by continuation fluoxetine or placebo is neither, so the codebook's `other` applies."
 },
 {
  "nct": "NCT00387348",
  "eligible": false,
  "exclusion_reason": "groups_not_randomized_arms",
  "comparisons": [],
  "design": "other",
  "indication": "depressive",
  "indication_note": "Depression in advanced lung or gastrointestinal cancer; fatigue is also listed.",
  "note": "Three randomized 4+4-week sequences: placebo-placebo (EG000), placebo-escitalopram (EG001), escitalopram-placebo (EG002). The AE groups span all 8 weeks and can't be split by period, so each escitalopram group mixes 4 weeks of escitalopram with 4 of placebo. Were such groups accepted, EG002 vs EG000 would be the comparison.",
  "reason": "The codebook leaves out a group that mixes exposures or covers a period after a switch to the drug; EG001 and EG002 each report 4 weeks of escitalopram and 4 of placebo together, so placebo-placebo (EG000) has no clean partner."
 },
 {
  "nct": "NCT00401245",
  "eligible": true,
  "exclusion_reason": null,
  "comparisons": [
   {
    "antidepressant_groups": [
     "EG005",
     "EG006"
    ],
    "placebo_groups": [
     "EG008"
    ],
    "molecules": [
     "desvenlafaxine"
    ],
    "background": "none",
    "combination": null
   }
  ],
  "design": "randomized_withdrawal",
  "indication": "non_psychiatric",
  "indication_note": "Menopausal vasomotor symptoms.",
  "note": "Only the double-blind taper phase has a placebo: after open-label DVS 100 mg (EG004, left out), participants were re-randomized to 2-week tapers (EG005 50 mg every other day, EG006 50 then 25 mg) or an abrupt switch to placebo (EG008). EG007 (DVS 50 mg one week, then placebo one week) left out as mixed exposure. Titration groups EG000-EG003 are all DVS, no placebo.",
  "reason": "EG007 reports one week of desvenlafaxine and one of placebo together, a group that mixes exposures, which the codebook leaves out of every comparison; EG005 (every-other-day dosing) and EG006 stay on desvenlafaxine for the whole taper phase."
 },
 {
  "nct": "NCT00578669",
  "eligible": true,
  "exclusion_reason": null,
  "comparisons": [
   {
    "antidepressant_groups": [
     "EG000"
    ],
    "placebo_groups": [
     "EG001"
    ],
    "molecules": [
     "fluoxetine"
    ],
    "background": "brief behavioural smoking cessation treatment and transdermal nicotine patch",
    "combination": null
   }
  ],
  "design": "acute",
  "indication": "other_psychiatric",
  "indication_note": "Smoking cessation (nicotine dependence) in smokers with elevated depressive symptoms; MDD and depression are also listed, so depressive symptoms are a second target.",
  "note": "Fluoxetine 20 mg or placebo (dextrose) begun 8 weeks before and continued through standard cessation treatment, 16 weeks in all.",
  "reason": "Indication is the main target from conditions and titles: the title gives fluoxetine 'for smokers' and both arms are built around a quit attempt with patch and counselling, so tobacco use (other_psychiatric) is main and the depressive symptoms go in indication_note."
 },
 {
  "nct": "NCT00958633",
  "eligible": false,
  "exclusion_reason": "groups_not_randomized_arms",
  "comparisons": [],
  "design": "randomized_withdrawal",
  "indication": "depressive",
  "indication_note": "Maintenance after remission of bipolar I depression (preventing depressive relapse); could be read as bipolar disorder outside a depressive episode (other_psychiatric).",
  "note": "Remitters on open-label escitalopram or bupropion XL added to antimanic drugs (EG002, left out) were randomized double-blind to continue the antidepressant 52 weeks (EG001) or stop at 8 weeks (taper from week 6, placebo by week 8; EG000). EG000 reports its 6 to 8 weeks on the antidepressant together with the later placebo period.",
  "reason": "The codebook leaves out a group that mixes exposures: the 8-week arm took the same antidepressant as the 52-week arm for its first 6 to 8 randomized weeks, so it isn't a placebo group, and with the open-label phase also out no clean comparison remains."
 },
 {
  "nct": "NCT00964886",
  "eligible": true,
  "exclusion_reason": null,
  "comparisons": [
   {
    "antidepressant_groups": [
     "EG000"
    ],
    "placebo_groups": [
     "EG003"
    ],
    "molecules": [
     "desipramine"
    ],
    "background": "none",
    "combination": null
   }
  ],
  "design": "acute",
  "indication": "non_psychiatric",
  "indication_note": "Chronic back pain.",
  "note": "EG003 is an active placebo (benztropine 0.125 mg daily, meant to mimic desipramine's anticholinergic effects) that the record calls the placebo; taken as the placebo group, though a stricter reading would leave it out. CBT alone (EG001) and desipramine + CBT (EG002) left out: the CBT arm lists no pill and the trial's only placebo is mapped to arm 4 alone. If the CBT arm did get the active placebo, EG002 vs EG001 would be a second comparison.",
  "reason": "A no-drug group counts as placebo only within a double-blind design, but the record gives the CBT arm no pill at all, so it is a no-treatment group without placebo (left out) and desipramine plus CBT has no matched placebo group getting the same CBT."
 },
 {
  "nct": "NCT01206478",
  "eligible": true,
  "exclusion_reason": null,
  "comparisons": [
   {
    "antidepressant_groups": [
     "EG000"
    ],
    "placebo_groups": [
     "EG001"
    ],
    "molecules": [
     "amitriptyline"
    ],
    "background": "megestrol from visit 2 (week 10), both arms",
    "combination": null
   }
  ],
  "design": "acute",
  "indication": "other_psychiatric",
  "indication_note": "Chronic oral food refusal in children aged 9 months to 8 years, read as a feeding disorder (DSM-5 feeding and eating disorders, avoidant/restrictive food intake); a medical reading as a paediatric feeding problem would make it non_psychiatric.",
  "note": "Amitriptyline 1 mg/kg vs matching placebo; both arms get megestrol from visit 2, so it is background. The placebo arm is typed active comparator only because of the megestrol.",
  "reason": "other_psychiatric covers any mental disorder as DSM-5 counts them, eating included, and persistent food refusal in young children is what DSM-5 places under feeding and eating disorders (avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder); the record names no medical cause."
 },
 {
  "nct": "NCT01330030",
  "eligible": true,
  "exclusion_reason": null,
  "comparisons": [
   {
    "antidepressant_groups": [
     "EG000"
    ],
    "placebo_groups": [
     "EG001"
    ],
    "molecules": [
     "transdermal selegiline"
    ],
    "background": "none",
    "combination": null
   }
  ],
  "design": "acute",
  "indication": "other_psychiatric",
  "indication_note": "Tobacco use disorder (nicotine dependence).",
  "note": "Selegiline 6 mg/24 h transdermal patch vs matching placebo patch for 8 weeks.",
  "reason": "`molecules` takes the names 'as named above', and the codebook's list of MAOIs used as antidepressants names this drug 'transdermal selegiline'; the group got the 6 mg/24 h patch."
 },
 {
  "nct": "NCT01797380",
  "eligible": false,
  "exclusion_reason": "other",
  "comparisons": [],
  "design": "acute",
  "indication": "depressive",
  "indication_note": "Depressive symptoms and fatigue in HIV-seropositive women (depression with a medical illness).",
  "note": "Terminated before any participant was treated; no participants analyzed, so both AE groups are empty. By design escitalopram (EG001) vs placebo (EG000) would be a clean comparison.",
  "reason": "Clean by design, but the ae_note says no one was treated or analyzed, so the groups hold no participants and no comparison remains; the codebook's `other` reason, explained in note, covers it."
 },
 {
  "nct": "NCT02317744",
  "eligible": false,
  "exclusion_reason": "combined_with_other_active",
  "comparisons": [],
  "design": "acute",
  "indication": "other_psychiatric",
  "indication_note": "Binge eating disorder in people with obesity; the eating disorder is taken as main.",
  "note": "Naltrexone 50 mg plus bupropion 300 mg daily vs pill placebo. Called a combination, but those are each drug's own standard doses, not ones the fixed-dose naltrexone-bupropion product gives, so it reads as two drugs taken together; the placebo group gets neither. If it were the one product, EG000 vs EG001 would be a comparison with combination naltrexone.",
  "reason": "The codebook keeps a combination only when it is one product and leaves out an antidepressant given with another active drug that isn't; nothing in the record says one product, and its separate per-drug doses match two drugs given together."
 },
 {
  "nct": "NCT03569475",
  "eligible": true,
  "exclusion_reason": null,
  "comparisons": [
   {
    "antidepressant_groups": [
     "EG001",
     "EG002"
    ],
    "placebo_groups": [
     "EG000"
    ],
    "molecules": [
     "levomilnacipran",
     "fluoxetine"
    ],
    "background": "none",
    "combination": null
   }
  ],
  "design": "acute",
  "indication": "depressive",
  "indication_note": "Major depressive disorder in children and adolescents (7 to 17 years).",
  "note": "8-week double-blind treatment-period groups used; fluoxetine is an antidepressant comparator, pooled. The down-taper groups (EG003-EG005) are the same participants in the blinded 1-week taper, reported separately; left out so no one is counted twice, so taper-week events aren't counted.",
  "reason": "The codebook allows several comparisons only for separately reported groups of participants (one per background), and the down-taper groups are the same participants as the treatment-period groups, so a second comparison would count them twice."
 }
]