Toxicity of antidepressants in overdose.

The paper is concerned with the greater risk of self-poisoning and successful suicide in the use of the older tricyclic antidepressant drugs by the depressed patient. It defines the factors which must be taken into account when undertaking a cost-benefit analysis of an antidepressant drug in addition to its efficacy, and concludes that there would appear to be every reason for considering the replacement of the older tricyclic antidepressants with newer non-tricyclic drugs in the first line of treatment of depression.