Citation

Kmetty Z, Bozsonyi K, Zonda T. Eur. J. Psychiatry 2016; 30(4): 293-303.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Departmento de Psiquiatria de la Facultad de Medicina de Zaragoza)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Background and Objectives: According to a number of psychiatrists, the decrease in the number of suicides can almost exclusively be ascribed to the increasing use of new antidepressants (ADs). Several ecological studies have been carried out to lend support to this claim; unfortunately, many of these started out from either methodologically or statistically flawed assumptions. The purpose of the current study is to demonstrate the examined relationships using complex time-series techniques on Hungarian national sample.

METHODS: When investigating the relationships between our time series, first we ensured their stationarity using several methods. We used two methods for the analysis involving several independent variables.

RESULTS: When using dynamic regression to ensure stationarity, the residuals of the suicide and AD time series showed a significant negative correlation. At the same time, when using the more robust technique of time series differentiation, the stationary time series showed no significant relationship between the use of antidepressants and suicide rates.

CONCLUSIONS: The models fitting our data showed somewhat mixed results. The vagueness of ecological models is well demonstrated by the fact that even those sociological variables (number of divorces, alcohol consumption) failed to show a significant relationship with suicides here, which are usually significant in analyses using micro data. © 2016, University of Zaragoza. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

human; suicide; Hungary; drug use; Suicide rate; unemployment; alcohol consumption; Ecological study; antidepressant agent; correlation analysis; divorce; Article; time series analysis; gross national product; Complex methodology; Magyar (people); Use of antidepressants