I need to know the suicide rates for the most common mental disorders (e.g. for bipolar disorder).
Although all mental disorders are associated with an elevated risk of suicide, certain disorders carry with them remarkably high lifetime risk. In fact, 80 - 90% of people who commit suicide have a mental illness. Hospitalization for a psychiatric disorder is quite prevalent in the suicidal population. The main disorders associated with a higher risk for suicide include depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, namely posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and phobias, and substance use problems. The highest risk increase in risk is among people with mood disorders and anxiety disorders. Organic mental disorders, dementia and mental retardation have the lowest increase in suicide risk.
1. Two thirds of people who die by suicide have symptoms consistent with major depression at the time of death, and people with major depression have a suicidal risk of twenty times that of people with no mood disorder.
2. People with bipolar disorder have a suicide risk of fifteen times that of people with no mood disorder. Studies show that in the majority of cases suicide occurs in the depressed phase with the most powerful predictors of suicide being a previous suicide attempt and feelings of hopelessness.
3. People with schizophrenia come next in increased risk of suicide with about 5% lifetime risk. Predictors of suicide among people with schizophrenia include a past history of suicide attempt; comorbid mood disorders and substance abuse; multiple admissions during the past year; distressing persistent symptoms; fear of deterioration with hopelessness and loss of faith in treatment, and having hallucinations, often auditory, such as voices commanding them to kill themselves (command hallucinations).
4. About 40% of those with alcohol dependence will attempt suicide, and up to 7% will die by suicide.
5. Comorbidity is common in psychiatric disorders and that increases the risk of suicide. That includes substance abuse comorbid with any other major mental disorder, and depressive disorder comorbid with schizophrenia.
in BPAD, 30 % of patients attempts suicide and half of them have successful attempts i.e around 15%.
in schizophrenia, 20 % of patients attempts suicide and half of them have successful attempts i.e around 10%.
Harris and Barraclough's meta-analysis, although dated, provides useful numbers: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9229027. A Scottish review also covered the ground well: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/251539/0073687.pdf.
You may want to look in this article by matt nock- a good review our group did- that sites the most recent work of his and kessler's
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236598307_Suicide_among_soldiers_a_review_of_psychosocial_risk_and_protective_factors?ev=prf_pub
Article Suicide Among Soldiers: A Review of Psychosocial Risk and Pr...
You can find the international rates for suicide on the web, a breakdown by disorder is a bit more difficult. Each country will have a data base through the appropriate Health Department that will show the breakdowns by disorder.
Actually the majority of people who die from suicide do not have any mental disorder. They are diagnosed posthumously using the discredited psychological autopsy method. Conducting a mental state exam using proxies is not valid or reliable and the idea that 90% of those who die from suicide are mentally ill is based less on science than on the desire to distract attention from the failure of mental health treatment and the adverse effects of pscyhiatric drugs.
Yes, I couldn't agree more.
Please read my paper "Exploring the phenomenology of suicide" Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 2010
Anything up to 20% of eating disorder sufferers die prematurely, with suicide being one of the prevalent causes of death, along with heart failure, however, exact values are hard to come by due to cause of death being unknown in a majority of cases
Antidepressants INCREASE suicidal tendencies as a side-effect so I agree that antidepressants should not be given to suicidal individuals
Regarding the important observation of Antony G Gordon, the N Engl J Med has recently published articles about the topic Antidepressants x Suicidality:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1408480
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1411138
Hello Jessica,
If you look at personality disorders, particularly Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), it is accepted and acknowledged that 10% of these individuals complete suicide. Most mental disorders have a risk of suicide associated with the disorder. Rates generally vary between populations, but not by much. However, the suicide rate for BPD is consistent across populations, cultures and countries. (Livesley, 1993; Corulla, 2010). I discuss BPD because it is the most common of personality disorders and more females than male suffer from BPD, at least, more females seek help (by self-referral or more commonly referral by others). It is of interest to note that he most common co-occurring disorders with BPD are Bipolar, PTSD and Dissociative Disorders. I hope this is helpful to your research.
William
Tara Davis, I agree with Anthony. The notion that antidepressants increase suicidal tendencies is at the very least misleading. They can, in a minority of cases. The FDA carries a black box warning on all antidepressants because the risk seemed higher among minors. That said, MAO inhibitors, tricyclics, SSRIs, SNRIs, Bupropion, SARIs, to imply all these drug groups increase suicidality is irresponsable. To say they should not be used with no supporting data, frankly, is like saying vaccines cause autism, which we know it's an extremely dangerous precedent.