RETRACTED: Antidepressant medication prevents suicide in depression (Retracted article. See vol. 125, pg. 419, 2012)

Objective: Ecological studies have demonstrated a substantial decrease in suicide in parallel with an increasing use of antidepressants. To investigate on the individual level the hypothesis that antidepressant medication was a causal factor. Method: Data on the toxicological detection of antidepressants in 18 922 suicides in Sweden 1992-2003 were linked to registers of psychiatric hospitalization as well as registers with sociodemographic data. Results: The probability for the toxicological detection of an antidepressant was lowest in the non-suicide controls, higher in suicides, and even higher in suicides that had been psychiatric inpatients but excluding those who had been in-patients for the treatment of depression. Conclusion: The finding that in-patient care for depression did not increase the probability of the detection of antidepressants in suicides is difficult to explain other than by the assumption that a substantial number of depressed individuals were saved from suicide by postdischarge treatment with antidepressant medication.