TY - JOUR PY - 2011// TI - Suicide-related events among child and adolescent patients during short-term antidepressant therapy JO - Psychiatry and the Clinical Neurosciences A1 - Tanaka, Osamu A1 - Singeo, Singeru Travis A1 - Nakamoto, Yuzuru A1 - Fukuhara, Hiroshi A1 - Yakushi, Takashi A1 - Kuba, Teizo A1 - Kondo, Tsuyoshi SP - 239 EP - 245 VL - 65 IS - 3 N2 - Aims: Antidepressants have been of limited use for adolescent subjects with depression because of drug-induced suicide-related events (SRE). Therefore, we investigated actual suicidality and its risk factors during antidepressant therapy among child and adolescent patients in clinical settings. Methods: The risks of SRE, consisting of suicidal ideation, self-mutilation and suicide attempt, were prospectively monitored among 70 child and adolescent patients (15.4 ± 2.8 years) during the first 3 months of antidepressant therapy. Results: The proportion of SRE decreased from 47.1% to 22.9% after the treatment. Subjects with persistent risks of SRE were significantly characterized by female sex (P < 0.05), psychotic features (P < 0.001), borderline personality disorder (P < 0.01), previous SRE (P < 0.001), and such baseline psychopathology as anhedonia (P < 0.005), irritability (P < 0.005) and hopelessness (P < 0.001). Discriminant analysis showed that baseline severity of SRE, borderline personality disorder and psychotic features were closely associated with SRE during antidepressant therapy. Total scoring using those three pretreatment factors predicted risks of SRE with sufficient sensitivity (81%)/specificity (98%) as well as high positive likelihood ratio (43.9). Conclusions: These findings suggest that deteriorated risk of SRE in child and adolescent patients receiving antidepressants should not be overestimated while some pretreatment characteristics may be useful to predict the outcome of SRE after antidepressant therapy.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1323-1316 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1440-1819.2011.02204.x ID - ref1 ER -