Boston (BBN)-A new research has found that youngsters who consume high doses of antidepressants are more at risk of developing suicidal behavior.
The study showed that children and youngsters who consume more than recommended dosage of antidepressant have more chances of suicidal behavior during the first 90 days of treatment, reports delhidailynews.com.
The researchers analysed data of 162,625 people aged between 10 and 64 and all of them were taking antidepressant treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor at medium or higher than medium dose from 1998 through 2010.
"Considered in light of recent meta-analyses concluding that the efficacy of antidepressant therapy for youth seems to be modest, and separate evidence that dose is generally unrelated to the therapeutic efficacy of antidepressants, our findings offer clinicians an additional incentive to avoid initiating pharmacotherapy at high-therapeutic doses and to monitor all patients starting antidepressants, especially youth, for several months and regardless of history of deliberate self-harm," Matthew Miller, MD, Sc.D, of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and colleagues wrote in the study.
"Moreover, while definitive studies on the impact of dose escalation in the face of non-response remain to be done, there are promising studies that suggest in certain subgroups, dose escalation can be of benefit. Finally it should be noted that in this study, there was no pre-exposure to post-exposure increase in suicidal behavior after the initiation of antidepressants in youth treated at the modal dosage," they concluded.
The findings are published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
BBN/ANS/AD/30Apr14-8:20pm (BST)
