The clean and dirty ways to reduce suicidality

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Abstract

Many psychiatric disorders, including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and alcohol use disorder, are characterized by an increased suicidal risk. Successful treatment of mental disorders with the use of antidepressants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers can reduce the risk of associated suicidality: suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, and completed suicides. Clozapine and lithium have an outstanding ability to reduce the probability of suicide, and their common property, which determines (along with other pharmacological effects) their antisuicidal potential, is the reduction of impulsivity and aggression. In addition to significant antisuicidal activity, clozapine and lithium are characterized by both an advantage in overall clinical efficacy over other drugs of their classes, and significant risk of side effects, as well as complications of therapy.

About the authors

Yury P. Sivolap

I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University)

Author for correspondence.
Email: yura-sivolap@yandex.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4494-149X
SPIN-code: 3586-5225
Scopus Author ID: 6604012934
Russian Federation, 119991, Moscow, Trubetskaya str., 8 (2)

Anna A. Portnova

The Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry

Email: yura-sivolap@yandex.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5938-0202
SPIN-code: 5899-0069
Russian Federation, 119034, Moscow, Kropotkinsky Lane, 23 (1)

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Copyright (c) 2021 Sivolap Y.P., Portnova A.A.

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