High rate of antidepressant treatment in elderly people who commit suicide
BMJ 1996; 313 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.313.7065.1118 (Published 02 November 1996) Cite this as: BMJ 1996;313:1118
- Margda Waern, resident in psychiatrya,
- Jan Beskow, professora,
- Bo Runeson, senior psychiatristb,
- Ingmar Skoog, associate professora
- a Institute of Clinical Neuroscience, Section of Psychiatry, Sahlgrenska Hospital, S-413 45 Goteborg, Sweden
- b Center for Suicide Research and Prevention, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm University, Sweden
- Correspondence to: Dr Waern.
- Accepted 7 August 1996
The strong role of affective illness in suicides late in life has been shown repeatedly.1 The prevailing view is that suicide in the elderly is primarily a question of undiagnosed, untreated depression.2 3 During recent years antidepressants which are better tolerated by elderly people have been introduced. We therefore examined cases of suicide among elderly people to see whether they had been taking antidepressants.
Subjects, methods, and results
Seventy five Scandinavian born people aged 65 or over (40 men, 35 women) committed suicide and were examined by the Goteborg Institute of Forensic Medicine from January 1994 to July 1995. The median age was 73 years (range 65–97). Sixty suicides were classified as certain—that is, there was no doubt of suicidal intention according to the forensic examiner (ICD9, E950-959)—and 15 …