Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T15:40:53.598Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is There a Lithium Withdrawal Syndrome?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

A. J. Mander
A. J. Mander*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh Department of Psychiatry, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Edinburgh EH 10 5HF
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Patients who discontinued lithium after a mean of 29 ± 21 months prophylaxis were compared with a similar group who were not taking the drug; all had only been in hospital once, and satisfied DSM-III criteria for mania. During the first three months following withdrawal of lithium, significantly more patients relapsed than in the control group; after this period, the rate was identical. These findings suggest that lithium withdrawal exists as a clinical phenomenon and that a period of lithium treatment does not improve the long-term prognosis, once the drug has been stopped.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 149 , Issue 4 , October 1986 , pp. 498 - 501
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association (1980) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed.) (DSM-III). Washington DC: APA.Google Scholar
Baastrup, P. C., Poulsen, J. C., Schou, M., Thomsen, K. & Amdisen, A. (1970) Prophylactic lithium: double blind discontinuation in manic depressive and recurrent depressive disorders. The Lancet, ii, 326–330.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blackburn, I. M., Loudon, J. B. & Ashworth, C. M. (1977) A new scale for measuring mania. Psychological Medicine, 17, 453–458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christodolou, G. N. & Lykouras, E. P. (1982) Abrupt lithium discontinuation in manic depressive patients. Acta Psychiatrica Scaninavica, 65, 310–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleiss, J. L., Dunner, D. L., Stallone, F. & Fieve, R. R. (1976) The life table: a method of analysing longitudinal studies. Archives of General Psychiatry, 33, 107–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grof, P., Cakuls, P. & Dostal, T. (1970) Lithium dropouts. A follow-up study of patients who discontinued prophylactic treatment. International Pharmacopsychiatry, 5, 162–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, J. R. & Hulun, R. P. (1983) Withdrawal symptoms from lithium. Four case reports and a questionnaire study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 143, 30–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, H. E., Broucek, B. & Greil, W. (1981) Lithium withdrawal triggers psychotic states. British Journal of Psychiatry, 139, 255–256.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lapierre, Y. D., Gagnon, A. & Kokkinidb, L. (1980) Rapid recurrence of mania following lithium withdrawal. Biological Psychiatry, 15, 859–864.Google ScholarPubMed
Meua, P. I. (1970) Prophylactic lithium: a double blind discontinuation in manic-depressive and recurrent depressive disorders. British Journal of Psychiatry, 116, 621–624.Google Scholar
Sashidharan, S. P. & McGuire, R. J. (1983) Recurrence of affective illness after withdrawal of long-term lithium treatment. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 68, 126–133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schou, M. (1980) Lithium Treatment of Manic Depressive Illness: A Practical Guide. Basel: Karger.Google Scholar
Schou, M., Thomson, K. & Baastrup, P. C. (1970) Studies on the course of recurrent endogenous affective disorder. Internationa1 Pharmacopsychiatry, 5, 100–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.