Citation

Torjesen I. BMJ 2015; 351: h4945.

Affiliation

London.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, BMJ Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1136/bmj.h4945

PMID

26376887

Abstract

Use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) increases the rate of violent crime among young adults, indicates a study published in PLOS Medicine on Tuesday 15 September.

Researchers from the University of Oxford and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm extracted information from Swedish registries on the 856 493 Swedish people (10.8% of the population) to whom SSRIs were prescribed during 2006-09 and criminal records.

They used stratified Cox regression analyses to compare the incidence of violent crime while patients were prescribed SSRIs with the incidence among the same people when they were not receiving the drugs.

Their results showed that the likelihood of a criminal conviction for violent crimes was higher when people were taking SSRIs (hazard ratio 1.19 (95% confidence interval....

Language: en