Association between physical illnesses and depressive symptoms requiring hospitalization in suicide victims

We examined an association between a history of hospital-treated depression and physical diseases in 1877 suicide victims from Northern Finland. Information on physical diseases and depression of victims was extracted from the Finnish Hospital Discharge Registers. Of suicide victims, 31% of female and 16% of male victims had a lifetime history of depression. When compared with victims without any lifetime hospital-treated physical illnesses, a history of depression was shown to associate with the diseases of the nervous, circulatory, respiratory, and musculoskeletal systems in the group of symptoms and signs, injuries and poisonings, and infectious diseases among male victims. Respectively, in female victims, an increased prevalence of depression was seen in endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases, diseases of the nervous, circulatory, genitourinary, skin and subcutaneous tissue, and musculoskeletal systems, and with injuries and poisonings, pregnancy-related problems and infectious diseases. This study is the first to evaluate comorbidity between physical illnesses and depression over the lifetime in suicide victims; earlier studies reported findings in living patients from epidemiological or clinical populations. Since depression can affect quality of life in severely ill patients, targeting depression in patients with chronic illness may assist in decreasing suicide rates.