Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T16:35:27.741Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Suicide in Chronic Schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Alec Roy
Alec Roy*
Affiliation:
Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, 250 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5T 1RB; Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

A matched controlled study of 30 chronic schizophrenic suicides is presented. Eighty per cent were male and committed suicide at a mean age of 25.8 years after a mean duration of illness of 4.8 years. Significantly more of the suicides had a chronic relapsing schizophrenic illness; 23.3 per cent committed suicide while in-patients, and 50 per cent of the out-patients committed suicide within three months of discharge from in-patient care. Significantly more of the suicides had a past history of depression (56.6 per cent), were depressed in the last episode of contact (53.3 per cent), had their last admission for depression or suicidal ideation (55.2 per cent) and were unemployed (80 per cent).

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 141 , Issue 2 , August 1982 , pp. 171 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1982 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association Task Force on Nomenclature and Statistics (1978) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, pp C9–C12, E13, E14.Google Scholar
Barraclough, B., Bunch, J., Nelson, B. & Sainsbury, P. (1974) A hundred cases of suicide. British Journal of Psychiatry, 125, 355–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, S., Leonard, C. V., Farberow, N. L. et al (1964) Tranquillizers and suicide in the schizophrenic patient. Archives of General Psychiatry, 11, 312–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dublin, L. (1963) Suicide, A Sociological and Statistical Study. New York: Ronald Press.Google Scholar
Falloon, I., Watt, D. & Shepherd, M. (1978) A comparative controlled trial of pimozide and fluphenazine decanoate in the continuation therapy of schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine, 8, 59–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Falloon, I. & Talbot, R. (1981) Persistent auditory hallucinations: coping mechanisms and implications for management. Psychological Medicine, 11, 329–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flood, R. & Seager, C. P. (1968) A retrospective examination of psychiatric case records of patients who subsequently committed suicide. British Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 443–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldthorpe, J. H. & Hope, K. (1974) The Social Grading of Occupation: A New Approach and Scale, pp. 134–43. New York: Oxford University Press Google Scholar
Knights, A., Okasha, M., Salih, M. & Hirsch, S. (1979) Depressive and extrapyramidal symptoms and clinical effects: A trial of fluphenazine versus flupenthixol in maintenance of schizophrenic out-patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 135, 515–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levy, S. & Southcombe, R. (1953) Suicide in a state hospital for the mentally ill. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 117, 504–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markowe, M., Steinert, J. & Heyworth-Davies, F. (1967) Insulin and chlorpromazine in schizophrenia: a ten-year comparative study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 113, 1101–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miles, P. (1977) Conditions predisposing to suicide: a review. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 164, 231–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Noreik, K. (1975) Attempted suicide and suicide in functional psychoses. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 52, 81–106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pokorny, A. (1964) Suicide rates in various psychiatric disorders. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 139, 499–506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pokorny, A. & Kaplan, H. (1976) Suicide following psychiatric hospitalization. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 162, 119–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rennie, T. A. C. (1939) Follow-up study of five hundred patients with schizophrenia admitted to the hospital from 1913 to 1923. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, 42, 877–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy, A. (1980) Depression in chronic paranoid schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 137, 138–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roy, A. (1981) Depression in the course of chronic undifferentiated schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 38, 296–300.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seeman, M. (1981) Gender and the onset of schizophrenia: neurohumoral influences. Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa, 6, 136–8.Google Scholar
Shaffer, J., Perlin, S., Schmidt, C. & Stephens, S. (1974) The prediction of suicide in schizophrenia. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 159, 349–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Temoche, A., Pugh, T. & MacMahon, B. (1964) Suicide rates amongst current and former mental institution patients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 138, 124–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsuang, M. T. (1978) Suicide in schizophrenics, manics, depressives and surgical controls: a comparison with general population suicide mortality. Archives of General Psychiatry, 35, 153–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Warnes, H. (1968) Suicide in schizophrenia. Diseases of the Nervous System, 29, 35–40.Google Scholar
Winokur, G. & Tsuang, M. T. (1975) The Iowa 500: Suicide in mania, depression and schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 132, 650–1.Google ScholarPubMed
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.