Suicidal Patients and the use of Antidepressant Drugs: a General Practice Survey

The author reports on the results of enquiries to general practitioners about how they treat suicidal patients. Some respond with simple psychotherapy & support & others with environmental manipulation. Some patients with depressive illnesses may respond to antidepressant drugs but there is a danger of the patient overdosing on the medications they have been prescribed. The author also discussed a survey in which data was collected on the proportion of patients who had attempted or died by suicide & who were taking antidepressants. Data analysis was also being done to determine if there were certain antidepressants associated with particularly low or high rates of suicidal behaviour.