Overall these findings from the general practice study form quite a consistent picture with other emerging data. Rather than being selective drugs limited in their effect to endogenous depressives, the tricyclic antidepressants appear to be relatively broad spectrum drugs having true antidepressant effects over quite a wide range of depressive disorders. This includes neurotic depressives and anxiety depressives, and it extends much further than one might have thought into the mild range. It is only the very mildest depressives who fail to show drug/placebo differences. There may be limited differences in those who respond best based on symptom pattern, previous history, and other characteristics, but the general pattern is for tricyclic antidepressants to be of therapeutic benefit and to have a true antidepressant effect over a wide variety of patients, provided that they satisfy psychiatric criteria for depression. This applies clearly to anxious depres­sives and appears to extend well into the spectrum of anxiety disorders, although not necessarily to all such cases.

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