Mortality among patients with schizophrenia

Results from a 40-year followup study of psychotic patients are presented to illustrate some of the major findings and unanswered questions about excess mortality in schizophrenia and to suggest analytical approaches that take full account of the potential effects of sample heterogeneity. In this study, hospital-diagnosed schizophrenia patients were at increased mortality risk whether or not they met research criteria for schizophrenia. In addition, mortality outcomes of several major diagnostic groups were similar despite substantial clinical and demographic differences between the groups at baseline. These results suggest that both diagnosis-specific and nondiagnostic factors are needed to account for excess mortality in patients with major psychiatric disorders. The issue of heterogeneity is also crucial for the clinical purposes of predicting and ultimately reducing the mortality risk of psychiatric patients, for example, in delineating profiles of high-risk patients who are not necessarily typical of other patients with the same diagnosis.