Population study links SSRI use with lower suicide rates

05/02/2006
Professor Guy Goodwin, head of the University of Oxford’s department of psychiatry, and Dr Seena Fazel, a consultant forensic psychiatrist and a senior research fellow in the department, conducted the study in collaboration with Dr Martin Grann of the Ce

The scientists in the UK and Sweden who conducted the comparison conclude that there is no evidence of an increase in suicide rates following the introduction of SSRIs in the general population or in a high-risk inpatient sample.


Professor Guy Goodwin, head of the University of Oxford’s department of psychiatry, and Dr Seena Fazel, a consultant forensic psychiatrist and a senior research fellow in the department, conducted the study in collaboration with Dr Martin Grann of the Centre for Violence Prevention at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute. The team studied a population of men and women with mood disorders who were at relatively high risk of suicide and who had been discharged from hospital.


The researchers determined the rates of suicide during the periods 1989-94 and 1995-2000, times of low and high SSRI prescribing, respectively. They analysed high-quality Swedish national databanks and looked at their data across three age bands. They also investigated rates of drug abuse. They compared this data with general population suicide rates.


Within the study population of former inpatients with affective disorders, there were 1,606 suicides. The researchers noted, "Suicide rates decreased for all women during 1989-94 and 1995-2000, and a trend was found towards lower rates in men."


Because roughly 90 per cent of suicides involved people over the age of 40, the number of younger cases was too small to determine significant effects in the younger age groups. The researchers found no increase or decrease in the rates of substance use disorders in patients who committed suicide.


Examination of the total population statistics showed that there were 20,851 suicides in the general population during 1989-2000. Suicide rates were lower at all ages for men and women in the general population in the interval of high SSRI prescribing.