Schou M
The Psychiatric Hospital, Risskov, Denmark.
Suicide Life Threat Behav. 2000 Fall;30(3):289-93.
This paper briefly summarizes and discusses at length two recent reviews. Their main findings were the following: (1) During prophylactic lithium treatment the overall mortality of patients with major mood disorders was much lower than in such patients in general. (2) The frequency of suicidal acts was many times lower in patients on lithium than in patients not on lithium. The limitations of the studies reviewed and the difficulty of interpreting their findings are discussed. It is concluded that prophylactic lithium treatment is indicated in patients with major mood disorders who are at high risk of committing suicide, that is, those with severe depressions or depressions with persistent suicidal thoughts or with suicide attempts in the past.
本文简要总结并详细讨论了最近的两篇综述。它们的主要发现如下：（1）在预防性锂盐治疗期间，重度心境障碍患者的总体死亡率远低于此类患者的一般情况。（2）服用锂盐的患者自杀行为的发生率比未服用锂盐的患者低很多倍。文中讨论了所综述研究的局限性以及解释其研究结果的困难之处。得出的结论是，对于有高自杀风险的重度心境障碍患者，即那些患有严重抑郁症或伴有持续自杀念头或过去有自杀未遂的抑郁症患者，应进行预防性锂盐治疗。
