Depressed Vets Have Seven-Fold Higher Suicide Rate

Depressed Vets Have Seven-Fold Higher Suicide Rate

By Neil Osterweil, Senior Associate Editor, MedPage Today

Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.November 01, 2007

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Nov. 1 -- The veteran with the highest risk for suicide is a younger white man, according to a longitudinal study of VA data from 1999 to 2004.

The study of more than 800,000 U.S. veterans showed that in addition to being young and white, a history of substance abuse or hospitalization for psychiatric reasons in the year before a diagnosis of depression also put veterans at increased risk for suicide, reported Kara Zivin, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan, and colleagues, online in advance of publication in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was associated with a lower risk for suicide, but only in older veterans who had been diagnosed with depression, possibly because older soldiers are more likely to be receiving medical care already, the authors speculated.

Overall suicide rates among depressed veterans treated in the VA systems were seven- to eight-fold higher than among the general population, although they were similar to those of civilian men being treated for depression in a large managed-care cohort, the authors noted.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/Depression/tb/7187