Diagnosis was made by an experienced research CHIR-258 solubility dmso psychiatrist, who conducted a structured interview.20 The

minimum severity criterion was defined as Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D-17)21 score of greater than 1 8 on the first 17 items. To be included patients could not have other current comorbid Axis I psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety disorders, substance abuse or dependence, or a previous maniac or hypomaniac episode. They had to be free of medication known to affect, the serotonergic system for at least 15 Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical days, depending on the half-life of the drug used, before the endocrine investigation and drug washout was supervised in hospital. Suicide history was assessed by an experienced psychiatrist, blind to endocrine results, by means of a semistruc Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical turcd interview, and a review of medical records. Fortynine patients had a history of suicide attempt (mean±SD, 2±1.1 lifetime suicide attempts) and 36 did not. Patients with a positive suicide history were then classified as recent, suicide attempters (n=26) if the suicidal act had occurred during the current, depressive episode and had triggered their psychiatric hospitalization (D-FEN test performed 11 to 37 days after most recent suicide Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical attempt); or past suicide attempters (n=23) if the most recent, suicide attempt had not occurred during the current depressive episode (D-FEN test performed 5 to 86 months after most recent suicide

attempt). The Lethality Rating Scale22 was used to measure the degree of medical damage of the most lethal lifetime suicide attempt. Medical damage is defined as the danger to life from a suicide attempt. Following Malone et al,23 we scored no medical damage

as zero and death as 8 (mean±SD, 2.8+1.3 scored on the Lethality Rating Scale in our sample). Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Following other investigators,24-27 we expressed the changes in PRL after D-FEN (ΔPRL) as PRL peak concentration value after D-FEN administration minus PRL baseline concentration value. In the morning, PRL concentrations decrease owing to the normal circadian Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical rhythm.28 Therefore, we used the values at t=0 min as baseline levels. Despite logarithmic or other transformations, the distribution of some data remained nonnormal (Kolmogorov Smirnov one-sample test for goodness of fit), thus nonparametric through statistical methods were used. Differences between groups were tested by analysis of variance (Kruskal-Wallis, H test) and, when the overall effect was significant, the Mann- Whitney (U test) was used with Bonferroni’s adjustment for three pairwise comparisons when applicable. Correlations between quantitative variables were estimated using the Spearman rank coefficient (p). Categorical data were analyzed using Fisher’s exact test. All tests were two-tailed. Results were considered significant, when P≤0.05. The three groups were comparable for age and sex distribution, as well as for baseline hormone values (Table I).