Burden of illness and suicide in elderly people

doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7361.441/a

From trainee to consultant, BMJ Group offers doctors around the world tailored information, special events, learning resources and recruitment services at every step along their career path.

... by doctors, for doctors, for patients
We are open for entries!

Online learning

BMJ Learning

High-quality CME / CPD for doctors and other healthcare professionals. BMJ Learning features hundreds of accredited, peer-reviewed learning modules in text, video, and audio formats. Find out more

Courses and Qualifications

BMJ Masterclasses

BMJ Masterclasses, led by experts, help clinicians to use the latest evidence and recent guidelines in practice and meet their CPD/CME requirements. Find out more

Exam Preparation

The leading provider of online exam preparation, helping over 167,000 healthcare professionals to pass their exams. Find out more

onExamination

Search all BMJ comment articles:

From

Limit by

Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription or payment. Please log in or subscribe below.

Physical disease and depression are prevalent in elderly Finnish suicide victims

Markku Timonen, psychiatrist. (markku.timonen@oulu.fi),
Kaisa Viilo, student of mathematical sciences.,
Erkki Väisänen, professor of psychiatry.,
Pirkko Räsänen, professor of psychiatry.,
Helin Hakko, statistician.,
Terttu Särkioja, doctor in forensic medicine.

Oulu Health Center, Box 8, 90015 City of Oulu, Finland
Department of Psychiatry, University of Oulu, Oulu
Department of Psychiatry, Oulu University Hospital
Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Oulu
Boynton Beach, FL 33496, USA

EDITOR—Waern et al report that among elderly people (those aged 65 years or more) serious physical illness was associated with increased risk of suicide in men but not in women.1 In addition, mental illnesses, particularly mood disorders, were strongly associated with suicide. Thus, the authors called for further investigations into depression in the context of physical disease in elderly people.

Credit: ROBERT DISCALFANI/PHOTONICA)

Finland has one of the world's highest death rates from suicide.2 The national Finnish hospital discharge register makes it possible to investigate reliably all hospital admissions for any physical diseases and mental disorders of each person living in Finland.3 We explored comorbid depression in the main …