Archival ReportA Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study of the Opiate Antagonist, Naltrexone, in the Treatment of Kleptomania
Section snippets
Subjects
Men and women aged 17 to 75 with a primary DSM-IV diagnosis of kleptomania were recruited by advertisements and referrals. All subjects met DSM-IV criteria for kleptomania using the clinician-administered Structured Clinical Interview for Kleptomania (SCI-K) (29) and were required to have had at least moderate urges to steal within the week prior to study entry (i.e., score ≥2 on the urge component of the Kleptomania Symptom Assessment Scale [K-SAS]) (25) and to have stolen something within 2
Subject Characteristics
Demographics of subjects at baseline are presented (Table 1). There were no statistically significant imbalances regarding age, gender, or marital status between groups. There were significant differences between groups regarding kleptomania severity at baseline with those assigned to naltrexone having more severe symptoms as reflected by the K-SAS and the CGI severity scales.
A total of 23 (92%) completed the 8-week study. Twelve (92.3%) of 13 subjects assigned to placebo and 11 (91.7%) of 12
Discussion
This randomized, double-blind, clinical trial found naltrexone to be superior to placebo in the treatment of kleptomania across a spectrum of illness-specific and global outcome measures. The results demonstrate that naltrexone treatment reduces the symptoms associated with kleptomania. In addition, this is the first double-blind pharmacological study in kleptomania and extends our previous open-label findings (25) by demonstrating that naltrexone is beneficial, safe, and well tolerated.
The
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