Effect of Ketamine vs. Active Placebo on Suicidal Ideation in Depressed Inpatients With Major Depressive Disorder or Bipolar Depression.

Plain-language summary

Depression and suicidal ideation/attempt/death are major causes of morbidity and mortality from psychiatric illnesses. In 2009, the World Health Organization listed depression as the leading cause of years lost due to disability worldwide. Suicide is the 9th most common cause of death in Canada with 1.6% of Canadians ultimately dying from suicide (Statistics Canada, 2012) and the 2nd most common cause of death in young people after accidental deaths. This information highlights the importance of finding treatments to prevent suicidal deaths. Ketamine has been shown to provide rapid treatment response for major depressive episodes both in major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD), via a single intravenous infusion which persists for at least 72 hours. The purpose of this study is to conduct a pilot trial of IV ketamine + treatment as usual (TAU) vs. midazolam (an active placebo) + TAU to estimate sample size for a full-scale RCT examining these treatments for decreasing suicidal ideation among depressed inpatients with major depressive disorder and bipolar depression. A total of 52 patients will be recruited for this trial. All subjects will be inpatients at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre with a diagnosis of either major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder type I or II currently depressed. Suicidal ideation must be present at baseline assessment in order to be included in the study. Thirteen subjects will be randomized to each treatment arm in each treatment stream - that is, 13 will be recruited to ketamine + TAU in the major depressive disorder stream, and 13 will be recruited to the midazolam + TAU in the major depressive stream. Likewise, 26 subjects with bipolar depression will be randomized to these two treatments.

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