Evidence for Beneficial Effects of Antidepressants on Suicidality in Depressive Patients: a Systematic Review

This paper gives a comprehensive overview of the positive effects of antidepressants on suicidality. In the first section, principal methodological issues related to suicidology in general as well as to clinical & epidemiological studies that investigate the influence of antidepressants on suicidality are discussed. In the second section, the results of controlled clinical studies on the efficacy of antidepressants in suicidality are presented. The third section reports on the results of other types of studies, especially epidemioloigcal studies. Altogether, there seems to be reasonable evidence from different research approaches that antidepressants are able to reduce suicide ideation & suicidal behaviour in depressive patients. (89 ref.) JA