Citation

Tamás Z, Károly B, Zoltán K. Mentalhigiene es Pszichoszomatika 2016; 17(2): 97-116.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016)

DOI

10.1556/0406.17.2016.2.2

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The authors studied the connections between suicide rates and the use of antidepressants (AD) published in the literature, focusing on ecological studies. They have found a couple of practical and theoretical problems which called into question the "antidepressant theo-ry" which argues that an increase in AD use is the most determinant reason of the decrease in suicide rates in the given population. 1. It is not known whether with the real use of AD of suicide victims the possibility of ecological fallacy is clearly implied, showing false relationships. 2. It is a fundamental problem, that correlations itself can only signal a relationship between two phenomena, but does not prove causality. The present situation is further complicated: ADs do not influence suicide directly, but they affect a psychiatric illness, an adverse reaction to which might be a suicide. ADs, therefore, are supposed to have an indirect preventive but incalculable effect of unknown magnitude on an unknown percentage of depressed patients whose number is unknown. 3. Authors have not found information about the distribution of ADs prescribed for depressives or other diseases. They had a chance to analyze an official Hungarian database and to separate the groups of patients who were prescribed ADs based on their BNO-10 codes: F00-F03; F063; F25; F30-39; F40-48; F50 and others (2007-2010). Their analysis revealed that during the period examined, only 53.93% of the ADs were sold per year for the patients with F25 and F30-39 codes, which carries a high suicide risk. Almost half of the AD user patients (46,07%) have had other psychiatric or non-psychiatric patients with low suicide risk. Therefore the number of ADs purchasing cannot be the indicator of the number of depressed patients or their treatment. 4. Authors gathered ecological studies which found no inverse relationship between increasing AD prescription (use) and suicides rates, or where results were mixed (inconsistent). © 2016 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest.

Language: hu

Keywords

Suicide; Ecological studies; Use of antidepressants; Practical and theoretical problems