Antidepressants: Children
(asked on 5th February 2016) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to ensure that the NICE guidelines on prescribing anti-depressants for children will be reviewed following the findings of the recent Nordic Cochrane Centre study, published in the British Medical Journal in January 2016, that use of these medications doubled the risk of suicide in people under the age of 18.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has processes in place to consider whether to update its guidance in light of significant new evidence.
NICE has advised that it is immediately reviewing the relevance of the Nordic Cochrane Centre study to its guideline on ‘depression in children and young people: identification and management’
and will update the guidance if required.