Psychiatric disorders with the highest risk for suicide completion
What psychiatric diagnoses carry the highest risk for suicide completion? What about suicide attempts and suicidal gestures? What about neurologic disorders?
- The suicide completion rates are highest for depression (∼15%) and schizophrenia (∼10%).
- The presence of anxiety, mixed-manic state, or eating disorder (especially anorexia nervosa) elevates the risk.
- Persons with borderline personality disorder frequently engage in “parasuicidal gestures” and are also at high risk for suicide completion (4 to 10%).
- Suicide is common in Huntington’s disease (8% to 20%) and may be predicted in at-risk individuals with soft neurologic signs.
- Suicide risk is also increased for neurocognitive disorders (delirium and dementia), stroke, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis (up to 7×), and epilepsy (∼5×)—especially temporal lobe epilepsy and complex partial seizures (up to 25×).
