A local multicenter study was conducted with depressed outpatients (n=113). Depression severity was appraised at baseline and at 6 weeks since inception with the HAMD-17 and the clinical global impression scale (CGI). Sensitivity to change was calculated by a within-group standardised effect size (dw). Discriminative power (against a clinical remission criterion [CGI=1]) was assessed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and the areas under the ROC curves (AUC).