Study: Risk of Suicide Doubled in Stroke Patients

Stroke patients could be 2 times as likely to commit suicide compared to the general population, according to a recent study.

For the study, researchers evaluated 220,336 stroke patients with a total follow-up of 860,713 person-years.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT
Primary Care and Suicide Prevention
Simple Blood Test Predicts Suicide with 80% Accuracy
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The study showed 1217 suicide attempts—260 that were fatal—during the follow-up period.

After comparing these rates to that of the general population, researchers found that stroke patients were twice as likely to attempt suicide that those who had not had a stroke. In stroke patients under 55 years old, the risk was 5 times greater.

The investigators noted that factors for suicidal attempts were linked to post-stoke depression, living alone, income level, and strokes with severe consequences. For all groups, the risk of suicide was higher within the first 2 years following a stroke.

“Both clinical and socioeconomic factors increase the risk of poststroke suicide attempts. This suggests a need for psychosocial support and suicide preventive interventions in high-risk groups of stroke patients,” they concluded.

The complete study is published in the April issue of Neurology.

-Michelle Canales Butcher

Reference:

Eriksson M, Glader EL, Norrving B, Asplund K. Poststroke suicide attempts and completed suicides. Neurology. 2015 April [epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000001514.