Serious mental illness and mortality rates.

Abstract

As has been found in a variety of other studies, the mortality rate for the seriously mentally ill population was more than twice the mortality rate for individuals in a comparable general population. Furthermore, although the increased mortality rate for the seriously mentally ill population was not constant across all causes of death, it was at least double that of the general population in seven of eight categories. The difference was greater for unnatural causes of death than for natural causes (SMRs=4.4 and 1.7, respectively), with the rates of deaths related to HIV showing the largest difference (SMR=6.1). The only cause of death that showed a greater(but nonsignificantly greater) rate in the general population was neoplasms (SMR=O.6). The finding that the seriously mentally ill population has a higher mortality rate than the general population is of less importance than is future research to identify the underlying reasons for this heightened mortality risk. This research is necessary before we can...