Why review a study when someone else has already done so?
I can think of a half dozen reasons, but none of them are convincing to me today. So I will just say that if you have an interest in the continuing debate about the relationship between a certain type of commonly prescribed antidepressants and suicide, please check out CL Psych’s Peer Review, SSRIs, Suicide, and Booze. Here’s a choice quote:
The authors ran a total of zero statistical analyses to examine the relationship between SSRI prescription rates and suicide rates in the United States. That’s right, zero.
Can’t be much more clearer than that. Why a respected journal like the American Journal of Psychiatry would publish such a study is beyond me. Just shows you that even peer-reviewed journals don’t always get it right (and should not be blindly trusted as the end-all, be-all of empirical evidence).
The short version — the data everyone reported on last week about this relationship is so seriously flawed, just ignore all those stories about the supposed causal relationship (or “link” if you like that word better) between the FDA warning on certain antidepressants and an increase in suicide rates. It apparently doesn’t exist. (At least not in any scientifically reliable way.)
BTW, yes, The Boston Globe agrees. And for some broader context, I couldn’t recommend more The New York Times article that appeared yesterday, Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy? (although, be prepared, it’s long as a 9-page read).
(4 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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3 Comments to
“Another Take on the SSRI and Suicide Relationship”
I am seriously sick and tired of hearing about the whole “antidepressant & suicide risk”… it just seems really ridiculous to me that they’d “discover” a correlation when the people who are taking these meds are likely to be suicidal from the get-go. So to go and blame it on the drug at least, in my mind, is asinine. DUH! Of course a lot of them are going to be suicidal, but to blame it on the med.. is just preposterous. I have a depression problem, but you wanna know when I’m feeling suicidal?? When I’m NOT on any kind of medication. Or when I’ve been drinking.(which i dont do.. as a matter of fact, haven’t in nearly 3 years.. I KNOW better!!!) Anyhow.. you want something to blame someone’s suicide on something? Well try pointing at something besides the medications that they may or may not have been taking.. stop blaming everything, and everyone for it.. these things happen.. and there is no good excuse for them.. you couldn’t have stopped them.. and the fault dont not belong on any one thing or person.. its like a snowball.. and sometimes.. something YOU think is the most ridiculous reason in the world, just happens to be that straw that broke the camels back.
You want to know a major cause of suicide? Is the da**ed drs out there that will prescribe antidepressants for someone who is highly depressed, but refuse to prescribe anything for the anxiety that the same drug causes.. so the person ends up in non-compliance, bcs its even harder to function when you’re having panic attacks all the time than when you’re so depressed you cant think straight. SO they quit taking the anti-dep, and next thing you know they’re beyond depressed.. and all bcs the dr was worried that “oh no! they MIGHT get addicted to a drug” no, not that! bcs thats MUCH worse than suicide, isn’t it?
idiots.
thats all.
~W.
Thats all.
pardon my typos, etc. (such as “the fault dont not belong…” obviously i meant “DOES not belong…”
I wont correct every single darned error.. but just want to point out that sure I have flaws, but one of them is not being stupid.
~W(rx)
Wrx, from what I understand the study is actually arguing the opposite - that it’s the decrease in antidepressant prescriptions that’s lead to a supposed increase in suicides (not that the drugs caused the suicides).
That being said, I do wish there was more information available on the number of people who commit suicide once antidepressants have been started. In psychology classes I’ve always been taught that a depressed person who goes on an antidepressant and then commits suicide does so because they supposedly now have the energy to kill themselves (maybe that increase in energy is really agitation?). I never saw any data supporting that theory, either. Theories are great, and all, but it sure would be nice to see some facts to support those theories.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 17 Sep 2007
