Sustained Ketamine Effectiveness for Suicidal Ideation

As part of the usual clinical activity of the Emergency and Post-Emergency Psychiatric Department, IV ketamine is used to treat suicidal crises in depressed patients hospitalized as an add-on to the treatment of depression. This infusion can be repeated. Patients are systematically reassessed twice in the month following the last infusion, to ensure that the suicidal crisis is progressing. Psychometric assessments are part of routine care, to ensure systematic evaluation of psychopathology, intensity of depression and suicidality. Therefore existing data were re-used from the medical records of patients who had received ketamine infusions to assess the effect of ketamine on suicidal ideation and behaviour.