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Citation
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Kahn GD, Tam SH, Felton JW, Westphal J, Simon GE, Owen-Smith AA, Rossom RC, Beck AL, Lynch FL, Daida YG, Lu CY, Waring S, Frank CB, Akinyemi EO, Ahmedani BK. Cancer Med. 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub. |
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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Patients with cancer are known to be at increased risk for suicide but little is known about the interaction between cancer and psychiatric diagnoses, another well-documented risk factor.
METHODS: Electronic medical records from nine healthcare systems participating in the Mental Health Research Network were aggregated to form a retrospective case-control study, with ICD-9 codes used to identify diagnoses in the 1 year prior to death by suicide for cases (N = 3330) or matching index date for controls (N = 297,034). Conditional logistic regression was used to assess differences in cancer and psychiatric diagnoses between cases and controls, controlling for sex and age.
RESULTS: Among patients without concurrent psychiatric diagnoses, cancer at disease sites with lower average 5-year survival rates were associated with significantly greater relative risk, while cancer disease sites with survival rates of >70% conferred no increased risk. Patients with most psychiatric diagnoses were at higher risk, however, there was no additional risk conferred to these patients by a concurrent cancer diagnosis.
CONCLUSION: We found no evidence of a synergistic effect between cancer and psychiatric diagnoses. However, cancer patients with a concurrent psychiatric illness remain at the highest relative risk for suicide, regardless of cancer disease site, due to strong independent associations between psychiatric diagnoses and suicide. For patients without a concurrent psychiatric illness, cancer disease sites associated with worse prognoses appeared to confer greater suicide risk.
Language: en |