Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T16:36:29.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Causes of Death in Schizophrenia and Manic-Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Ming T. Tsuang ,
Robert F. Woolson  and
Jerome A. Fleming
Ming T. Tsuang*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa College of Medicine, 500 Newton Rd., Iowa City, IA. 52242, U.S.A.; Currently Faculty Scholar, Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation and Visiting Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, England
Robert F. Woolson
Affiliation:
Department of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health, University of Iowa College of Medicine; Currently Fellow, Foundation Fund for Research in Psychiatry and Senior Academic Visitor, Department of Biomathematics, University of Oxford
Jerome A. Fleming
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry University of Iowa College of Medicine
*
∗Address for reprints.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Causes of death were studied in a cohort of 200 schizophrenic, 100 manic, and 225 depressive patients who were followed in a historical prospective study. These patients were admitted between 1934 and 1944 and were studied 30 to 40 years later. Five cause of death categories were considered in this analysis: (1) unnatural deaths, (2) neoplasms, (3) diseases of the circulatory system, (4) infective and parasitic diseases, and (5) other causes. For each cause of death, the expected number of deaths was calculated from vital statistics for the State of Iowa for the time period of follow-up. Observed numbers of deaths were contrasted with expected numbers of deaths to assess statistical significance for each diagnostic group. There was a significant excess of unnatural deaths in all diagnostic groups in both sexes, with the exception of female manics. This group, however, did show a significant excess of circulatory system deaths. Both male and female schizophrenics showed a substantial excess of infective disorder deaths.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 136 , Issue 3 , March 1980 , pp. 239 - 242
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1980 

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

(1) Tsuang, M. T. & Woolson, R. F. (1977) Mortality in patients with schizophrenia, mania, depression and surgical conditions: a comparison with general population mortality. British Journal of Psychiatry, 130, 162–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(2) Morrison, J., Clancy, J., Crowe, R. & Winokur, G. (1972) The Iowa 500: I. Diagnostic validity in mania, depression, and schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 27, 457–61, 1972.Google Scholar
(3) Report of the US Delegation to the International Conference for the 8th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (1975) Series 4, No. 6.Google Scholar
(4) Chiang, C. L. (1975) Introduction to Stochastic Processes in Biostatistics. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
(5) Woolson, R. F., Tsuang, M. T. & Fleming, J. A. (1978) A method for analyzing mortality data collected in follow-up studies. Methods of Information in Medicine, 17, 116–20.Google Scholar
(6) Bishop, Y. M., Fienberg, S. E. & Holland, P. W. (1975) Discrete Multivariate Analysis: Theory and Practice (1975). Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.Google Scholar
(7) Modrzewska, K. & Böök, J. A. (1979) Schizophrenia and malignant neoplasms in a north Swedish population. Lancet, i, 275–6.Google Scholar
(8) Fox, B. H. (1978) Cancer death risk in hospitalized mental patients. Science, 201, 966.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.