{"title":"Designing Clinical Trials to Assess the Impact of Pharmacological Treatment for Suicidal Ideation/Behavior: Issues and Potential Solutions.","authors":"Zhixing Yao, William V McCall","doi":"10.1007/s40290-023-00467-x","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Suicide is a serious and growing public health concern yet randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that inform pharmacologic treatment remain limited. We emphasize the overall need for such trials and review the literature to highlight examples of trials that have aimed to study patients at elevated risk of suicide. We discuss key examples of existing psychotropic medication trials as well as psychotherapy intervention studies that can yield important design insights. Medications that have been studied in individuals at risk for suicide include lithium, clozapine, zolpidem, prazosin, ketamine, esketamine, and aripiprazole. While important design challenges should be considered-RCTs to study suicide are feasible and much needed. Issues such as overall trial design, patient-selection criteria, and the scales/tools used to assess suicidality are discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":19778,"journal":{"name":"Pharmaceutical Medicine","volume":"37 3","pages":"221-232"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10097518/pdf/","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Pharmaceutical Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s40290-023-00467-x","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PHARMACOLOGY & PHARMACY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Suicide is a serious and growing public health concern yet randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that inform pharmacologic treatment remain limited. We emphasize the overall need for such trials and review the literature to highlight examples of trials that have aimed to study patients at elevated risk of suicide. We discuss key examples of existing psychotropic medication trials as well as psychotherapy intervention studies that can yield important design insights. Medications that have been studied in individuals at risk for suicide include lithium, clozapine, zolpidem, prazosin, ketamine, esketamine, and aripiprazole. While important design challenges should be considered-RCTs to study suicide are feasible and much needed. Issues such as overall trial design, patient-selection criteria, and the scales/tools used to assess suicidality are discussed.
期刊介绍:
Pharmaceutical Medicine is a specialist discipline concerned with medical aspects of the discovery, development, evaluation, registration, regulation, monitoring, marketing, distribution and pricing of medicines, drug-device and drug-diagnostic combinations. The Journal disseminates information to support the community of professionals working in these highly inter-related functions. Key areas include translational medicine, clinical trial design, pharmacovigilance, clinical toxicology, drug regulation, clinical pharmacology, biostatistics and pharmacoeconomics. The Journal includes:Overviews of contentious or emerging issues.Comprehensive narrative reviews that provide an authoritative source of information on topical issues.Systematic reviews that collate empirical evidence to answer a specific research question, using explicit, systematic methods as outlined by PRISMA statement.Original research articles reporting the results of well-designed studies with a strong link to wider areas of clinical research.Additional digital features (including animated abstracts, video abstracts, slide decks, audio slides, instructional videos, infographics, podcasts and animations) can be published with articles; these are designed to increase the visibility, readership and educational value of the journal’s content. In addition, articles published in Pharmaceutical Medicine may be accompanied by plain language summaries to assist readers who have some knowledge of, but not in-depth expertise in, the area to understand important medical advances.All manuscripts are subject to peer review by international experts. Letters to the Editor are welcomed and will be considered for publication.