Suicidal behavior has not been associated with the Anxiety Disorders alone until recently.
It has long been known that as many as 90 percent of suicides in the United States are associated with mental illness, especially substance abuse disorders, schizophrenia, and mood disorders such as depression. Up to 75 percent of all people with depression, schizophrenia or other mental illnesses who attempt or complete suicide also are diagnosed with one or more of the Anxiety Disorders.
As recently as 1999, the Surgeon General could only say that, ” it is likely that the rate of comorbid [simultaneous] anxiety in suicide is underestimated.” There had been no studies at the time of Anxiety Disorder alone being a risk factor for suicide.
However, since then there have been a number of studies of the risks of Anxiety Disorders alone for suicide. It has been universally found that the suicide risk in patients with Anxiety Disorders is much higher than previously thought. Bob Montgomery and Laurel Morris say,
Patients with anxiety problems, especially but not only panic problems, suffer an unexpectedly high rate of heart disease and suicide. Suicide has long been recognized as a risk associated with depression. But [when] researchers compared a group of anxious with a matched group of depressed patients and found that the suicide rates for anxious patients were equal to or slightly higher than for the depressed patients.
This post summarizes some landmark studies from the past three years that have proven Anxiety Disorders, both alone and in association with other mental illnesses, are a significant risk factor for suicidal ideation, attempts, and completions.
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