Women, those with prior attempts more likely to take their own lives in schizophrenia

Individuals with schizophrenia who died by suicide were more likely to be older, have previous suicide attempts and be women, according to data published in Psychiatry Research.

“To deeply understand and analyze the suicidal characteristics (such as suicide means, timing characteristics, suicide intent and behavior characteristics) of suicides with schizophrenia has significant meaning for controlling the suicide behavior of schizophrenia,” Juncheng Lyu, PhD, of the Weifang Medical University School of Public Health in China, and Jie Zhang, PhD, of the Central University of Finance and Economics in China, wrote. “However, few researchers have compared the uniqueness of these suicidal characteristics of suicides with and without schizophrenia.

“The aim of the current study is to compare the suicidal characteristics between suicides with schizophrenia and those without schizophrenia in China, in order to explore the especial characteristics of schizophrenic suicides and provide theoretical references for prevention of schizophrenic suicide behavior,” they added.

Lyu and Zhang collected data on 392 suicides from a large epidemiology study that examined suicide in three Chinese provinces. They used the psychological autopsy method to collect information from those who knew the individuals prior to taking their own lives. Further, they used the questionnaire of characteristics for suicidal behavior, Beck’s Suicide Intent Scale and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV to further analyze data.

Individuals with schizophrenia who died by suicide had higher suicidal intent, were more inclined to be isolated, more likely to tell people their suicidal intent and less likely to prepare posthumous papers compared with those without schizophrenia, according to the study results.

Of the suicides included within the sample, 9.7% were individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. Individuals with schizophrenia who took their own lives were older on average than those without schizophrenia (29.03 years vs. 26.60 years, respectively; P = 0.025), and were also more likely to be women (60.5% vs. 43.8%; P = 0.049).

Of those analyzed in the study, 84.7% of individuals without schizophrenia who died by suicide had never previously attempted compared with 63.2% of individuals with schizophrenia.

The researchers found no significant differences in violent suicide means between individuals with or without schizophrenia. However, for nonviolent suicide means, individuals with schizophrenia were found to be more likely to overdose. Suicide in individuals with schizophrenia was also more likely to occur between April and June, in the middle of the month (11th to the 20th) and in the afternoon between 3:01 p.m. and 6 p.m.

“The current study finds that schizophrenic suicides have distinctive characteristics on suicide means, suicide time period, suicide intent and suicide behavior compared with those without schizophrenia,” the researchers wrote. “[Identifying] the suicidal characteristics and targeted preventive measures [is] meaningful to prevent schizophrenic suicides in clinical practice.”