Treatment for Depression Reduces Suicide Attempts
This story is quite pertinent to the trend among some in society to dismiss suicide prevention as paternalistic, and to promote assisted suicide for even the mentally ill. Treatment for depression reduces suicide attempts:
Promoting "rational suicide" and facilitation for some won't help in treating these despairing people. It would be like society telling teenagers that they, maybe, probably shouldn't smoke, but if they--choose cigarettes with a filter.The study, in the American Journal of Psychiatry, involved an analysis of 70,368 depressed patients prescribed an antidepressant drug by a primary care physician, 7297 prescribed an antidepressant by a psychiatrist, and 54,123 treated with psychotherapy.
Medical claims were reviewed to assess the occurrence of suicide attempts 90 days before and 180 days after beginning treatment. In all three groups, the rate of suicide attempts was highest in the pre-treatment period, followed by the 30-day period after starting treatment. Beyond 30 days, the likelihood of suicide attempts continued to fall.
The investigators found that teenagers and young adults had the highest suicide attempt rates, but the trends related to treatment were the same as in other age groups.
Labels: Suicide Prevention
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:30 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Guess most people just refuse to question whatever's held as morally "Right" or, then again, they just simply dont like to "question"... before the corpses start to smell.
Mr. Wesley, i was just informed of this little documentary, that, very much like this blog of yours, has the marvellous propensity to leave one in a bit of a sour mood:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0410407/
Think it might be to your taste?
Cheers
Ricardo
I thought this post would generate more discussion than any in a while from those who support assisted suicide and think that suuicide prevention is paternalistic and demeans, assaults, harms human dignity and radical human autonomy.
These people were talked out of it, perhaps held against their wills, drugged out of it... all those things that are supposed to be demeaning-an affront to autonomy.
Where's the outrage? Do we intuitively realize that life is a fundamental good and there should people who we should NOT help kill themselves even if they really want to die and maybe we really should intevene to stop people from what they want to do. If is not good to help kill these lives, why others? Maybe we realize that personal autonomy has limits.
I thought this post would be the biggest in a while. I'm disappointed. Do assisted suicide advocates take suicide prevention and intervention like this as good news. Is it good news when a 15-25 year old is talked out of suicide, drugged out of it and goes on living even though they didn't go through with what they really wanted to do at the time after some depressing reflection?
Well Don, I guess facts sometimes get in the way of ideology. Thanks for writing.
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