People With Schizophrenia Likely to Die Younger
People with schizophrenia died at an average of 8 years younger than people without schizophrenia did, in a population-based study published in CMAJ.
What’s more, the mortality rate among people with schizophrenia was triple that of the rest of the population, researchers reported.
Their study included the deaths of more than 1.6 million people age 15 and older in Ontario, Canada, during the 20-year period of 1993 to 2012. Among those deaths were 31,349 people with schizophrenia, who tended to be female, younger, and living in lower-income neighborhoods, compared with the general population.
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“This study, in addition to documenting astonishingly high mortality rates, also points to an equity issue—that individuals with schizophrenia are not benefiting from public health and health care interventions to the same degree as individuals without schizophrenia,” said Paul Kurdyak, MD, PhD, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto, Ontario. “The complex needs of individuals with schizophrenia and comorbid medical conditions create a tremendous challenge to providers and health care systems more broadly.”
According to the study, cardiovascular deaths have not decreased in people with schizophrenia as they have in the general population. Researchers believe health care access as well as smoking, poor diet, and other unhealthy lifestyle habits may factor into the increased mortality risk among people with schizophrenia.
The study did identify some positive news: in people with schizophrenia, age at death increased from an average 64.7 years in 1993 to 67.4 years in 2012. In people without schizophrenia, however, age at death increased from 73.3 years in 1993 to 76.7 years in 2012.
“Although there have been numerous calls to action to help individuals with severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, to manage chronic medical illnesses, and although the declining trends and narrowing absolute gap that we observed are positive developments, more effort is required to reduce the considerable disparity in both mortality and illness burden," the study concluded.
—Jolynn Tumolo
References
- Gatov E, Rosella L, Chiu M, Kurdyak PA, et al. Trends in standardized mortality among individuals with schizophrenia, 1993-2012: a population-based, repeated cross-sectional study. CMAJ. 2017;189(37):E1177-E1187.
- People with schizophrenia have threefold risk of dying [press release]. Ontario, Canada: CMAJ; September 18, 2017.