Author Interviews, BMJ, Mental Health Research, Pediatrics, Pharmacology / 29.01.2016
Antidepressants May Raise Suicide and Aggression Risk in Youth
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Tarang Sharma, PhD candidate
Nordic Cochrane Centre, Rigshospitalet
University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences,
Denmark
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: These newer antidepressants are some of the most prescribed medications in the world and previous research in the area has suggested an increased suicide risk on these drugs in young people, but only when unpublished clinical study report data is used. Such risk is missing when the published articles are considered due to severe selective reporting and publication bias.
In our study we found that the research design of most of the trials was very poor and there were major discrepancies in the reporting, leading to the under-estimation of harms. Despite these problems we still found that both suicidality and aggression were more than doubled in children and adolescents on antidepressants compared to those on placebo.
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