Dr Oleguer Plana-Ripoll has published another high impact article, this time in The Lancet. For those that don’t know he and his team published an article in JAMA Psychiatry earlier this year on psychiatric co-morbidity[1]. This previous paper was discussed in an earlier edition of ReB.
The new article published on the 25th of October 2019 explores the association between mental disorders and mortality[2]. It is understood that those suffering from mental disorders can have an increased risk of early death compared to those without mental disorders.
The paper by Plana-Ripoll et al analysed data from over 7.3 million people from Danish health registries. They found that people with a mental disorder had higher mortality rates compared to the general population, and that all types of disorder were associated with higher mortality (all cause). They also looked at specific cause of death and observed those with any mental disorder had elevated risk of death for all analysed specific causes (with the highest risk due associated with suicide and substance misuse). They also analysed mortality rates for specific groups of mental disorders. It should be noted those diagnosed with a mental disorder included in the study were seen by a psychiatrist in a hospital (inpatient, outpatient, or emergency department) and so probably represent more severe cases.
The study is rich with detail and worth exploring, it is fantastic that Dr Plana-Ripoll has made a website available to explore the study and the findings. https://nbepi.com/mortality
Dr Plana-Ripoll was kind enough to present his findings at a breakfast meeting held at Munich Re on the 22nd October.
- Plana-Ripoll, O., et al., Exploring Comorbidity Within Mental Disorders Among a Danish National Population. JAMA Psychiatry, 2019.
- Plana-Ripoll, O., et al., A comprehensive analysis of mortality-related health metrics associated with mental disorders: a nationwide, register-based cohort study. The Lancet, 2019.