Is COPD associated with 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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