NCJ Number
215616
Journal
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Volume: 45 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2006 Pages: 1054-1058
Date Published
September 2006
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This New York City medical examiner surveillance study of suicides of youth under 18 years old focused on cases that occurred from 1999 to 2002 which involved the detection of antidepressants in the body at autopsy.
Abstract
The study examined whether there was a link between antidepressants and suicide attempts. The authors advise that although the study findings provided no evidence of a strong link between antidepressants and suicide, they did not rule out the possibility of suicidal thoughts or nonlethal suicide attempts among youth taking antidepressants. They recommend that clinicians and parents continue to carefully monitor the clinical status of youth who are taking antidepressants. The study found that 41 youth under 18 years old committed suicide in New York City from 1999 through 2002. Of these cases, 36 (87.8 percent) had a serum toxicological analysis and an injury death interval of 3 days or less. There was only one suicide in which both buproprion and sertraline (antidepressants) were detected in the autopsy. Antidepressants were not detected in any of the other youth suicides. 1 table and 25 references