title: The relationship between the prescription of psychotropic drugs and suicide rates in older people in England and Wales.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Several studies have reported an inverse correlation between general population and elderly suicide rates and antidepressant prescribing rates. Correlations between general population and elderly suicide rates and prescribing rates of other psychotropic drugs have also been reported. All studies of elderly suicide rates have used data over a decade old.
  
  
  METHODS
  The relationship between elderly suicide rates and prescription rates of psychotropic drugs by the broad British National Formulary (BNF) categories, for individual psychotropic drug groups within the BNF categories (e.g. SSRIs), and for individual psychotropic drugs was examined over a 12-year period (1995-2006) using Spearman's rank correlation. All data were ascertained from the archives of the National Statistics Office.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was an absence of significant correlations between elderly suicides rates and rates of prescriptions of psychotropic drugs in the broad BNF categories, individual psychotropic drug groups and individual psychotropic drugs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings may be due to methodological flaws. However, if they are genuine, then the following approaches require consideration to further reduce suicide rates: (1) development of strategies to ensure continued prescription of psychotropic drugs at the current level; (2) development of strategies to improve non-pharmacological measures, including improved mental health services provision for older people, improved assessment of suicide risk, increased availability of psychosocial interventions and restricting the availability of methods of suicide; and (3) development of strategies to implement improvement in distal risk (e.g. societal socio-economic status) and protective (e.g. societal educational attainment) factors for suicide at a societal level.
authors.affiliation: 1University of Central Lancashire, Preston.
authors.forename: Ajit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.forename: Galina
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhinchin
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zarate-Escudero
authors.forename: Manjunath
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Somyaji
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004739:England; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055553:Prescription Drugs / Q000506:poisoning / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D011619:Psychotropic Drugs / Q000506:poisoning / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013405:Suicide / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014852:Wales
chemical_list: D055553:Prescription Drugs; D011619:Psychotropic Drugs
keywords: Elderly suicides; antidepressants; psychotropic drugs