Mental Disorders Increase Risk of Premature Death

Young men with mental disorders like schizophrenia or depression are at a greater risk of premature death, researchers found, even in cases not severe enough to warrant hospitalization.

Finn Rasmussen, PhD, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and colleagues analyzed data from the records of 1.09 million men who underwent mental and physical examinations upon conscription into military service between 1969 and 1994, mean age 18, 5.6% of which were diagnosed with a mental disorder. 

These disorders included schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, personality and neurotic disorders, and alcohol or substance abuse disorders. 

In those men diagnosed upon conscription, hazard ratios ranged from 1.81 (95% CI, 1.54-2.10) in those with depressive disorders to 5.55 (95% CI, 1.79-17.2) in those with bipolar disorder.

In those diagnosed later, upon hospitalization, ratios ranged from 5.46 (95% CI, 5.06-5.89) (neurotic and adjustment disorders) to 11.2 (95% CI, 10.4-12.0) (other substance use disorders) in men born from 1951 to 1958 and increased in men born later.

"Our finding that a clinical diagnosis of a neurotic and adjustment disorder or a personality disorder during a screening examination in early adulthood was associated with an approximately two-fold risk of death, even in those with no evidence of comorbid mental illness, suggests that the mortality risk associated with mental disorder is not limited to those whose disease is severe enough to require inpatient care," Rasmussen and colleagues observed.

-Michael Potts