Study finds use of antidepressants reduces suicides, but increases attempts
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The use of medications against depression has been found to decrease death by suicide. However, a fresh Finnish study, which appeared on Tuesday in the publication Archives of General Psychiatry, found that anti-depressants also increase the number of suicide attempts.
The study involved more than 15,000 patients, including all of those in Finland who had been hospitalised after attempting suicide between 1997-2003.
The researchers combined information from a registry on attempted suicides compiled by the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES), as well as from the registry kept by the Social Insurance Institution (KELA) on depression drug prescriptions that had been filled, and statistics on causes of death. The patients who had attempted suicide were monitored through the registries an average 3.4 years.
"We compared what had happened to the patients during their medication-free months, and what happened while they were taking medicines for depression", says Professor Jari Tiihonen of the University of Kuopio, who headed the research group. In addition, patients who had never used anti-depressants were examined separately.
During drug therapy, suicides decreased by 32 percent. However, there had been 39 percent more suicide attempts during the treatment than without it.
There is no clear-cut answer to why there had been such a discrepancy between the trends in suicide attempts and successful suicides.
"People who are taking medication for depression also have a bottle of pills within reach. Milder suicide attempts, such as overdoses of anti-depressants, could increase", Tiihonen says.
He says that the use of deadly, violent means of self-destruction appear to decrease among patients who are on medication. There are also fairly many women and young people who take medications for depression.
Anti-depressants had previously been recognised to lower the risk of suicide among children and young people.
The Finnish study found that the risk of suicide among the young increased among those using the drug paroxetine, but otherwise there were no major differences among age groups. Most of the patients in the study used SSRI drugs, which serve as serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
The researchers were also interested in non-suicide causes of death of people who had previously attempted to commit suicide. It came as a surprise that especially during the use of SSRI drugs, death from cardiovascular conditions declined by 68 percent.
"The medicines have an effect on blood clotting, so it heart attacks can decrease", Tiihonen said.
The study is unique in that it uses extensive patient registries from real life.
"The study into the connection between depression drugs and suicides is difficult in clinical medical studies, because suicides are always rare events", says Professor Jouko Lönnqvist of the National Public Health Institute.
Suicides have decreased in Finland constantly since 1990. Last year 994 suicides took place in Finland. The use of anti-depressants has increased sevenfold since the 1980s.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 7.12.2006 - TODAY |
 Study finds use of antidepressants reduces suicides, but increases attempts
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