Compared to the general population, mentally ill patients might have additional risk factors for thrombembolism that can lead to sudden deaths. Several studies suggest a significant relationship between mental illness and death due to pulmonary embolism.

Our study evaluates the causal part that might have mental illness and different physical and medical treatments in the sudden deaths due to pulmonary embolism in mentally ill patients.

We conducted a retrospective study on the autopsies of patients admitted to Razi Hospital for psychiatric illness and who died during their stay in hospital from January 2000 to December 2010.

38 patients died during their stay at Razi Hospital during the studied period and had the origin of death identified by autopsy. Average age at the moment of death was 42,31 years, 58% were male, 40,5% suffered from physical illness before their admission to psychiatric hospital, 65% were tobacco-smokers. The most frequently found psychiatric diagnosis (41,7%) was Schizophrenia. First generation antipsychotics were mostly prescribed to patients (87,5%). Pulmonary embolism was the cause of death of 6 of our patients which equals 15,78%. Amongst these 6 patients, two suffered from Major Depressive episode with psychotic features, the remaining suffered from schizophrenia.

Several of the modifiable and non modifiable risk factors for thromembolism found in psychiatric patients and mentioned in literature are also found in our study. Identification of these risk factors is necessary to avoid premature death of mentally ill patients.