Suicidality as a Possible Side Effect of Antidepressant Treatment.

Because this piece does not have an abstract, we have provided for your benefit the first 3 sentences of the full text.

Suicide is a tragic but not uncommon outcome to psychiatric illness. The risk and rate of suicide among those who are mentally ill are higher than among the general population, and much effort has been made by researchers and clinicians in both psychiatry and primary care to find ways to prevent suicide in these patients. However, reports that antidepressant use can be associated with an increase in suicidal thoughts and behavior are cause for concern and have resulted in the public health advisory issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March 2004. This advisory contained warnings relevant to 10 popular antidepressant agents (Table 1); for a summary of the warning information contained in the advisory, see Table 2.