Decreased risk of suicides and attempts during long-term lithium treatment: a meta-analytic review

Objectives:  To update and extend comparisons of rates of suicides and suicide attempts among patients with major affective disorders with versus without long‐term lithium treatment. Methods:  Broad searching yielded 45 studies providing rates of suicidal acts during lithium treatment, including 34...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bipolar disorders 2006-10, Vol.8 (5p2), p.625-639
Main Authors: Baldessarini, Ross J, Tondo, Leonardo, Davis, Paula, Pompili, Maurizio, Goodwin, Frederick K, Hennen, John
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
bipolar disorder
Bipolar Disorder - drug therapy
Bipolar Disorder - epidemiology
Humans
lithium
Lithium Carbonate - therapeutic use
major affective disorders
meta-analysis
Prevalence
Risk Factors
suicide
Suicide - psychology
Suicide - statistics & numerical data
Suicide, Attempted - psychology
Suicide, Attempted - statistics & numerical data
Time Factors
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Objectives:  To update and extend comparisons of rates of suicides and suicide attempts among patients with major affective disorders with versus without long‐term lithium treatment. Methods:  Broad searching yielded 45 studies providing rates of suicidal acts during lithium treatment, including 34 also providing rates without lithium treatment. We scored study quality, tested between‐study variance, and examined suicidal rates on versus off lithium by meta‐analytic methods to determine risk ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results:  In 31 studies suitable for meta‐analysis, involving a total of 85,229 person‐years of risk‐exposure, the overall risk of suicides and attempts was five times less among lithium‐treated subjects than among those not treated with lithium (RR = 4.91, 95% CI 3.82–6.31, p 
ISSN:1398-5647
1399-5618
DOI:10.1111/j.1399-5618.2006.00344.x