People with mental illness have an increased risk of suicide. Previous Danish studies have shown that the risk is elevated in the period shortly after admission and especially after discharge from psychiatric hospital. Trine Madsen from DRISP has in an updated analyses investigated whether this is still the case or whether the recent decades of efforts in the field have led to an improved situation for people with mental vulnerability.
Register data for the entire Danish population aged 15 years or older in the period 1995-2016 were included in the analysis.
Men and women who were in inpatient treatment for a psychiatric disorder had a suicide rate of 237 and 322 per 100,000, respectively, compared to men and women who had never been inpatients. In the first week after discharge, the suicide rate was 225 and 425 times higher for men and women, respectively, when compared to those who had never been admitted. About 6% of all suicides amongst males and 13% amongst females occurred during the first week of a psychiatric admission or discharge. The study also showed that the suicide rate amongst admitted patients fell by 2.5% per year until 2009, after which the rate rose by 7.5% per year.
The study’s conclusion was that – despite falling suicide rates – the period around admission and discharge from a psychiatric hospital is still associated with an extremely high risk of death by suicide.
You can find the study here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acps.13221
DRISP: Trine Madsen, Merete Nordentoft & Annette Erlangsen