Aspects of Suicide in Schizophrenia

Introduction: In the literature, autolytic risk in patients with schizophrenia was estimated at 10–40%, and up to 50% in studies that also refer to patients with schizoaffective disorders.
Purpose: To find the risk factors of suicide in this specific group of patients with schizophrenia who comitted suicide.
Material and methods: A retrospective study made on 53 patients with typical history of schizophrenia, who committed suicide in the 2000–2009 period.
Results and discussions: Of the 794 investigated suicide cases, 53 were patients with schizophrenia (6.7%), 54.7% were between 15–30 years and 66% were male. Marital status seems to play a major role in suicide genesis, 72.7% of the subjects being either unmarried, divorced, separated or widowed. Alcohol consumption was present in 26.1% of cases and smoking in 32.2% of cases.
Conclusions: Although the number of studied cases is too small to draw relevant conclusions, our study indicates that male gender, young age, unmarried status and rural origin act as risk factors for committing suicide.