Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Elevated Suicide Risk among Patients with Multiple Sclerosis in Sweden

Elevated Suicide Risk among Patients with Multiple Sclerosis in Sweden Results from previous studies of suicide risk among patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) are inconsistent. This may be explained partly by differences in methodology and study populations. The purpose of our study was to investigate suicide risk among hospital patients with MS in Sweden. During the period 1969–1996, 12,834 cases were recorded in the Swedish Hospital Inpatient Register, with 77,377 hospital admissions, in which MS was a primary or secondary diagnosis at discharge. The mean follow-up time for the whole cohort was 9.9 (SD 7.3) years. When the data for these MS patients were linked to the Swedish Causes of Death Register for the same period, 5,052 (39.4%) were found to have died. Among the 5,052 deaths, suicide was an underlying cause of death in 90 cases (1.8%). The mean period between the initial admission date with an MS diagnosis at discharge and the date of death for the 90 MS suicide cases was 5.8 (SD 5.1) years. This was significantly shorter (p = 0.002) than the mean of 7.9 (SD 6.4) years for MS cases who died due to other causes. Suicide risk, calculated as the standardized mortality ratio (SMR), was significantly elevated (SMR = 2.3) among both male and female MS cases compared with the general population. Suicide risk was particularly high in the first year after initial admission with an MS diagnosis, and among younger male MS cases. The mean age at the time of suicide was 44.5 (SD 12.4) years, and 58% of the suicides were committed within 5 years after the first admission with an MS diagnosis. The crude suicide rate among MS patients during the study period was 71 per 100,000 person-years. The rate was significantly higher (p < 0.001) in males (114) than in females (47), with an odds ratio of 2.4 (95% CI: 1.6–3.8). These findings have implications for suicide preventive measures in neurological practice. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Neuroepidemiology Karger

Elevated Suicide Risk among Patients with Multiple Sclerosis in Sweden

Fredrikson, S.; Cheng, Q.; Jiang, G.-X.; Wasserman, D.
Neuroepidemiology , Volume 22 (2): 7 – Apr 1, 2003
Download PDF
7 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/karger/elevated-suicide-risk-among-patients-with-multiple-sclerosis-in-sweden-G5bWTKPazg

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Karger
Copyright
© 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel
ISSN
0251-5350
eISSN
1423-0208
DOI
10.1159/000068746
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Results from previous studies of suicide risk among patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) are inconsistent. This may be explained partly by differences in methodology and study populations. The purpose of our study was to investigate suicide risk among hospital patients with MS in Sweden. During the period 1969–1996, 12,834 cases were recorded in the Swedish Hospital Inpatient Register, with 77,377 hospital admissions, in which MS was a primary or secondary diagnosis at discharge. The mean follow-up time for the whole cohort was 9.9 (SD 7.3) years. When the data for these MS patients were linked to the Swedish Causes of Death Register for the same period, 5,052 (39.4%) were found to have died. Among the 5,052 deaths, suicide was an underlying cause of death in 90 cases (1.8%). The mean period between the initial admission date with an MS diagnosis at discharge and the date of death for the 90 MS suicide cases was 5.8 (SD 5.1) years. This was significantly shorter (p = 0.002) than the mean of 7.9 (SD 6.4) years for MS cases who died due to other causes. Suicide risk, calculated as the standardized mortality ratio (SMR), was significantly elevated (SMR = 2.3) among both male and female MS cases compared with the general population. Suicide risk was particularly high in the first year after initial admission with an MS diagnosis, and among younger male MS cases. The mean age at the time of suicide was 44.5 (SD 12.4) years, and 58% of the suicides were committed within 5 years after the first admission with an MS diagnosis. The crude suicide rate among MS patients during the study period was 71 per 100,000 person-years. The rate was significantly higher (p < 0.001) in males (114) than in females (47), with an odds ratio of 2.4 (95% CI: 1.6–3.8). These findings have implications for suicide preventive measures in neurological practice.

Journal

Neuroepidemiology – Karger

Published: Apr 1, 2003

Keywords: Multiple sclerosis; Suicide; Mortality

There are no references for this article.