Review Reveals Complex Association Between Hypnotic Medications and Suicidality

Modern hypnotic medications are associated with suicidality, but the association may often be confounded by the presence of mental illness. Moreover, many hypnotic-associated suicides have also involved use of other sedatives or alcohol. Finally, hypnotic-associated suicide may also occur specifically at times of peak drug effect —an occurrence that might be mitigated by judicious prescription and use of hypnotic medications.Those are among the complex findings around the association of hypnotic medications and risk of suicide from areview of literature and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) adverse-event reports published inAJP in Advance. The review also includes a list of 10recommendations for safe prescribing of hypnotics.Insomnia is associated with increased risk for suicide, and the FDA has mandated that warnings regarding suicide be included in the prescribing information for hypnotic medications. The researchers found that toxicology studies from the United States and elsewhere show that modern hypnotics have frequently been taken before death by suicide, although the hypnotics are often taken in combination with other sedatives or alcohol. At the same time, death is possible when hypnotics are used as a single agent for self-poisoning, and examples of this were found for flurazepam, temazepam, triazolam, and zolpidem.Retrospective case series have consistently shown that hypnotic users are overrepresented among suicide victims, with odds ratios in the range of...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: ajp in advance FDA hypnotic medications literature review suicide Source Type: research