Objectives: To evaluate the relationship between the mortality rates associated with psychiatric conditions like depression and schizophrenia compared with chronic medical conditions like hypertens...

Mortality during US FDA clinical trials in patients with diabetes, hypertension, depression and schizophrenia.

https://link-springer-com-443.webvpn.jmu.edu.cn/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-981-10-2414-6_24.pdf

Elderly Suicide and Suicide Prevention

Abstract:We are still failing to protect our mental health services and the people who deliver them. One central reason for current problems is the overwhelming focus of the service on Increased Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), the NHS’s largest mental health programme. The ‘evidence base’ for this programme’s effectiveness has been established through the widespread use of performance data, drawn from a system that has itself become highly contested. IAPT is also a key component within the government’s austerity programme and its plans for the introduction of the new ‘fitness for work’ welfare assessment process. And it is also an enabler of the opening up of the mental health sector to outside providers, partly because it paves the way towards a downgrading of jobs. It also fits perfectly with a preoccupation with financial targets and performance indicators that reflect efficiency within the service rather than clinical outcomes. To begin to address all this, there is a need for a public inquiry into the current regime of performance management and the IAPT model, and the development of a new network that can create a platform for national engagement on the key issues.

The future of mental health services: the organising challenge ahead: This instalment of the Soundings Futures series grapples with the current crisis facing the UK's mental health services

Suicide is one of the most relevant public health pathological behavior worldwide and is frequently associated with major depression. Antidepressant (AD) medications are usually considered as a treatment of first choice although evidence that AD drugs may stimulate suicidality especially in children and adolescents has been reported. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a black boxed warning for AD treatment in these populations, but no concluding evidence has been found to date. This chapter aimed to review the current literature concerning the effect of AD medications on suicidality together with discussing the effects of FDA warning on AD prescription volumes and suicidality in the different age groups. Moreover, future perspectives based on recent pharmacogenomic findings and updated clinical management strategies will be discussed in order to provide some further understandings and practical suggestions to better manage this debated topic.

Antidepressant Medications and Suicide Risk: What Was the Impact of FDA Warning?

BACKGROUND: Several studies have reported an inverse correlation between general population and elderly suicide rates and antidepressant prescribing rates. Correlations between general population and elderly suicide rates and prescribing rates of other psychotropic drugs have also been reported. All studies of elderly suicide rates have used data over a decade old. METHODS: The relationship between elderly suicide rates and prescription rates of psychotropic drugs by the broad British National Formulary (BNF) categories, for individual psychotropic drug groups within the BNF categories (e.g. SSRIs), and for individual psychotropic drugs was examined over a 12-year period (1995-2006) using Spearman's rank correlation. All data were ascertained from the archives of the National Statistics Office. RESULTS: There was an absence of significant correlations between elderly suicides rates and rates of prescriptions of psychotropic drugs in the broad BNF categories, individual psychotropic drug groups and individual psychotropic drugs. DISCUSSION: The findings may be due to methodological flaws. However, if they are genuine, then the following approaches require consideration to further reduce suicide rates: (1) development of strategies to ensure continued prescription of psychotropic drugs at the current level; (2) development of strategies to improve non-pharmacological measures, including improved mental health services provision for older people, improved assessment of suicide risk, increased availability of psychosocial interventions and restricting the availability of methods of suicide; and (3) development of strategies to implement improvement in distal risk (e.g. societal socio-economic status) and protective (e.g. societal educational attainment) factors for suicide at a societal level. Language: en

The relationship between the prescription of psychotropic drugs and suicide rates in older people in England and Wales.

Aims and methodAs mental health services have an important role in prevention of suicides, the relationship between Care Quality Commission performance ratings of mental health trusts and the local suicide rates were examined with the null hypothesis that there will be no relationship between them. Data on suicide rates for men and women aged 16–65 for each district covered by a mental health trust were ascertained from the Office of National Statistics for the year 2009. Data on performance ratings of mental health trusts for the same year were obtained from the Care Quality Commission Report.ResultsThere was no significant relationship between suicide rates in the districts covered by 60 mental health trusts in England and Wales and their performance ratings.Clinical implicationsThe negative findings suggest that the performance rating of mental health trusts do not influence local suicide rates.

The relationship between NHS performance indicators and suicide rates.

BackgroundA few studies have demonstrated an inverse relationship between the general population and suicide rates and antidepressant prescribing rates. Correlations between general population suic...

Galina Zhinchin

Papers

The relationship between the prescription of psychotropic drugs and suicide rates in older people in England and Wales.

The relationship between NHS performance indicators and suicide rates.

The relationship between the prescription of pyschotropic drugs and suicide rates in adults in England and Wales.