Depression and Bipolar info explaining the latest research in everyday English

Antidepressants and suicide

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Here’s a statement of the bleedin’ obvious: ‘depression increases the risk of suicide.’

But the research community is divided as to whether one of the extremely unwanted side-effects of second-generation antidepressants is an actual increase the likelihood of suicide, especially in the initial phases of medication, or not.

And it makes no difference whether the medication is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) or a serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI).

The best advice seems to be this: monitor yourself or the person taking the medication. If behaviour significantly changes, if there are displays of increased anger or irritability, or if thoughts of suicide play a larger role than usual in thought processes, seek urgent advice from the treating physician and consider whether the treatment plan needs to be modified.

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