Mortality Among Psychiatric Patients

The mortality of all patients seen at the Department of Psychiatry, the General Hospital in Lund, Sweden during 1962 was studied for the years 1962–1968. The number of deaths was 260. The expected number of deaths in a corresponding sample of the general population was 159. The mortality was significantly increased in both men and women. The ratio between observed and expected mortality was highest in the younger age groups. The overmortality was due mainly to an increased number of suicides, accidents and nervous and circulatory diseases in the men and suicide and cancer in women. The patients who died were compared with a randomized subsample of psychiatric patients sill alive at the end of the observation time. The items chosen for comparison were social and medical factors previously found to be related to mortality. The purpose was to try to recognize high risk groups within the psychiatric population. Divorced persons were more common among those who died than among controls, and more males who died were living along, unemployed or invalid pensioners. Mortality seemed to be independent of type of care in 1962 in terms of hospitalization and out‐patient contact. Differences found in psychiatric services by those who had died and controls before and after 1962 were of low significance. The one outstanding psychiatric diagnosis among those who died was the organic brain syndrome. Alcoholism was more common among men who died accidental deaths compared with controls. More than 50% of the patients who committed suicide had previously attempted suicide. A high proportion of those who died were hospitalized in somatic wards and sent to the psychiatric out‐patient department for psychiatric assessment. Common reasons for referral were recently attempted suicide and pain, often of unknown origin.