Application of Item Response Theory to Model Disease Progression and Agomelatine Effect in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder

Introduction In this paper, we studied the effect over time of agomelatine, an antidepressant drug administered in patient with major depressive disorder, through item response theory (IRT), taking into account a strong placebo effect and missing not at random. We also assessed the informativeness of the HAMD-17 scale’s item.