A Population-Level Study Concerning the Assumed Association Between Suicide Rates and Antidepressant Consumption in Hungary

Abstract

Background

It has been claimed that the advent of modern antidepressants has reduced the suicide rate.

Aims

To examine the correlation between the suicide rate and the prescription of antidepressants.

Method

A dynamic regression was employed to analyze a 73-month-long, monthly time series between 2010 and 2016 in Hungary. The independent variable was the Defined Daily Dose value for the number of antidepressant (AD) prescriptions filled each month.

Results

The models failed to show a significant association between the prescription of antidepressants and age- and sex-specific monthly suicide rates.

Conclusions

The prescription of antidepressants in Hungary has had no impact on suicide rates.

Keywords

antidepressants suicide dynamic regression Granger causality autoregressive integrated moving average

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