Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica
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Acta Psychiatr Scand · Feb 1992
Comparative StudyEffect of psychopharmacotherapy on suicide risk in discharged psychiatric inpatients.
We investigated 64 former psychiatric inpatients who had committed suicide within 1 year after their discharge and compared them with a carefully matched control group of patients who did not commit suicide. One third of the patients in both groups were no longer in treatment at the time of the suicide or, for controls, at the corresponding point in time. At that time, a significantly higher proportion of controls had been receiving psychopharmacotherapy and a significantly higher proportion of them were on lithium.
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Birthweight and obstetric complications were registered retrospectively in 24 monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs. Sixteen pairs were discordant and 8 pairs were concordant for DSM-III-R schizophrenia. ⋯ No difference in respect of family history of schizophrenia between the 2 groups of MZ twins was found. In the discordant pairs, no significant difference between the schizophrenic twin and the nonschizophrenic co-twin was observed regarding birth order, birthweight or physical condition at birth.
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Acta Psychiatr Scand · Dec 1991
Outcome of attempted suicide and psychiatric consultation: risk factors and suicide mortality during a five-year follow-up.
A total of 1018 self-poisoned patients were treated during the year 1983 in the emergency room of Helsinki University Central Hospital. By the end of a 5-year follow-up period, 3.2% of these had committed suicide, making annual suicide mortality 589 per 100,000. During the first year after the index attempt, suicide mortality was 1768 per 100,000, a 50-fold risk compared with that of the total population in Helsinki. ⋯ When the lethality was assessed as being very serious or intention to die as certain, 21% later committed suicide. The relative risk for those left without psychiatric consultation was 0.6 when the lethality was mild and 1.6 when it was severe. Results indirectly indicate that psychiatric consultation seemed to have a positive effect on the outcome of these attempted suicides.
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Acta Psychiatr Scand · Sep 1991
Multicenter Study Comparative Study Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical TrialParoxetine and imipramine treatment of depressive patients in a controlled multicentre study with plasma amino acid measurements.
In a 12-week double-blind study with 36 patients with major depressive episode (DSM-III), paroxetine (Seroxat, Aropax) showed significantly quicker onset of efficacy on the Melancholia Scale, and better tolerance than imipramine. Plasma concentration analyses showed no clear concentration-efficacy correlation in either treatment group. ⋯ A significant correlation between baseline plasma tryptophan: large neutral amino acids ratio and final Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) score and a trend towards an inverse correlation between this ratio and percentage reduction in HRSD score were seen in the paroxetine group but not in the imipramine group. In line with previous studies, these results support the hypothesis that paroxetine is an effective and well tolerated antidepressant.
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Data on the suicide rate from 1922 to 1935 and from 1965 to 1988 are obtained from annual journals and original documents compiled by the Estonian State Committee for Statistics. During the period of Estonian independence (1922-1935 under consideration), the suicide rate was 16.7 per 100,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the period. ⋯ A decline in the male suicide rate from 55.2 to 36.8 has occurred since 1986. The effects of sociopolitical changes and of limitations on the sale of alcohol on suicide rates are discussed.