Risk of Suicide is Reduced by Antidepressives

Antidepressive drugs decrease the mortality rate of schizophrenic individuals, while therapy by using bensodiazepines greatly raises it, especially as regards suicide. Supplying a variety of antipsychotics concurrently, however, seems to own no effect at all. This in accordance with a new study inspecting different drug mixtures applied to affected individuals with schizophrenia.

"We weren't as aware the beneficial effects of antidepressives were therefore, powerful," says Jari Tiihonen, professor of medical psychiatry at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Clinical Neuroscience.

The research followed 2,588 Finns that had recently created schizophrenia from the time of their initial authorization to hospital for 4 years. By obtaining the Finnish registers, the scientists were consequently able to verify the effects of various drug mixes on the death rate risk inside the group.

The scientists discovered that during bensodiazepines, the individuals ran a 91 per cent greater risk of early death compared to at times when each of these drugs were not utilized. Proven the most common cause of death was suicide, and the majority deaths occurred along with patients that had been using some of their bensodiazepines for a longer time of four weeks.