Antidepressants do not encourage suicidal tendencies: Study

Antidepressants do not encourage suicidal tendencies: Study
A study appearing in the latest issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry says that contrary to the prevailing perceptions, antidepressants do not increase the risk of suicidal attempts among teenagers or adults.

Researchers from Seattle's Group Health Co-operative monitored around 65,000 patients and arrived at the conclusion that concern about the ill-effects of the drugs were preventing many people from benefiting from antidepressant use. The study also looked at the suicidal tendencies in these patients before and after they began antidepressant therapy.

The authors tracked the medical and pharmacy records of these patients from 1992 to 2003. The study suggests that after the institution of the therapy, the number of suicide attempts decreased by about 50 percent.

But the authors say that the more pressing worry for them is that the drugs do not seem to help people with chronic depression. ''Keeping a close watch on patients after they begin taking these drugs is a good idea, although not because these medicines are especially risky or dangerous," commented Dr. Greg Simon, lead author of the study.

''The real problem with antidepressants is that they don't work right away, they have side effects, and . . . unfortunately, doing miserably is common." This study is likely to renew the debate over the real use of this group of drugs, which are the fifth most prescribed drug in the country. Around 122 million prescriptions were written for drugs such as Prozac in America last year.

The current study also said that the class of drugs called as SSRIs, or Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors of which Prozac and Seroxat are a part actually resulted in rapid decline of suicidal tendencies. "Our study showed that on average, the risk of suicide actually goes down after people start taking the antidepressant," Dr Simon concluded.