Drugs Associated With More Suicidal Ideations are Also Associated With More Suicide Attempts

This study sought to determine whether drugs associated with more suicide ideations are also associated with more suicide attempts in large spontaneous adverse event report databases. Generalized linear models with negative binominal distribution were fitted to Food and Drug Administration adverse event data from 2004-2008. 832 drugs were evaluated. Suicide ideations had a significant positive association with suicide attempts & had an approximately 131-fold stronger magnitude of association than non-suicidal adverse events, after adjusting for drug class, gender, & age. This association suggests drug-induced suicide ideations observed in randomized controlled trials plausibly represent harbingers that presage more serious suicide attempts & deaths by suicide. (13 refs.)