Depression Can Lead to an Accidental Medicine Overdose

There is a link between psychiatric illness and accidental medication overdose, a study in the January American Journal of Psychiatry suggests. Indeed, depressive disorders and anxiety disorders other than posttraumatic stress disorder were found to have a stronger association with the risk of death from a medication-related overdose than with the risk of death from an alcohol overdose or an illegal-drug overdose. Researchers are unsure why, however.

The study, which was conducted on all patients treated in Veterans Health Administration facilities from 1999 to 2000--over three million subjects--appears to be the first to look at the longitudinal relationship between psychiatric disorders and death from accidental medication overdose in an adult clinical population.

Click here for an abstract of the study.

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