Number needed to treat (NNT)
How many people must take a treatment for one additional person to benefit versus placebo — the most honest single number in medicine.
An NNT of 8 means seven of eight people get no benefit beyond placebo. ask for it by name.
What it is
NNT answers the question trials are built to answer: compared with placebo, how many people must take this for one extra person to get the defined benefit? Commonly cited NNTs for antidepressants in acute depression sit in the mid-to-high single digits, varying with severity and endpoint.
Its twin
NNH — number needed to harm — does the same arithmetic for side effects. A fair treatment conversation puts the two next to each other, which advertising never does.
Somewhere to put it
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get veisund — it’s freewant the deeper story? read prescribed to fail
Questions
What is a good NNT?
Lower is better; single digits is respectable in psychiatry; what matters is hearing a number rather than 'most people get better on this.'
Where do I find a drug's NNT?
Published meta-analyses report them; your prescriber should be able to give one for someone like you. Our starting-checklist post includes it in the question list.
Keep reading
More from the glossary
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