Elsevier

Journal of Psychiatric Research

Volume 45, Issue 9, September 2011, Pages 1269-1271
Journal of Psychiatric Research

Is COPD associated with suicide behavior?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2011.01.014Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

The goal of this study is to examine the relationship between chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and suicidal ideation and suicide attempt among adults in the United States.

Methods

Data were drawn from the National Comorbidity Study-Replication (NCS-R), a household probability sample of adults ages 18 and older in the United States.

Results

COPD is associated with significantly increased odds of suicidal ideation and suicide attempt, compared with those without COPD. The association between COPD and suicide attempt remained statistically significant after adjusting for demographics, depression, panic disorder, substance use and nicotine dependence. The association between COPD and suicidal ideation was no longer significant after adjusting for nicotine dependence.

Conclusions

Our findings provide initial evidence that there is a relationship between COPD and suicidal behavior among adults in the community. Future studies that can examine the relationship between COPD and completed suicide, as well as replication of these results, would improve our understanding of whether and to what degree COPD confers an increased vulnerability for suicide behavior.

Section snippets

Study sample

Data on individuals aged 18 and older who completed Part I and II of the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R) were used in this study. The NCS-R is a nationally representative sample (N = 9882) of English-speaking individuals aged 18 and older living in US households between February 2001 and December 2004 (Kessler and Merikangas, 2004). Part I of the NCS-R survey, which comprised of core diagnostic assessment, was administered to all respondents, Part II was administered to only

Results

82.4% of those with COPD were lifetime smokers and 36.0% had lifetime nicotine dependence. Adults with COPD were significantly older (59.7 (16.2) vs. 44.7 (17.8), p < .0001), more likely to be female (62.1% vs. 37.9%, p = .045), were less likely to be married/cohabitating (46.4% vs. 53.6%, p < .0001) and were more likely to be Caucasian (70.4% vs. 29.6%, p < .0001) compared with those who did not have COPD.

Discussion

Results of this study provide initial evidence suggesting that COPD is significantly associated with increased likelihood of suicide attempt among adults. These associations do not appear to be due to confounding with depression, panic disorder, drug, alcohol or nicotine dependence. COPD was also associated with increased odds of suicidal ideation, though this link was no longer significant after adjusting for nicotine dependence. Below we discuss what these results add to existing knowledge in

Role of the funding source

Work on this study was funded by grant # DA20892 from NIDA.

Contributors

Dr. Goodwin wrote the paper and performed the statistical analyses.

Conflict of interest

None declared.

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