Premature mortality, causes of death, and mental disorders

In The Lancet, Oleguer Plana-Ripoll and colleagues report new methods and findings from a population-based cohort study on premature mortality and specific causes of death in patients with mental disorders.7 The authors did a comprehensive analysis of mortality-related heath metrics associated with mental disorders, including sex-specific and age-specific mortality rate ratios (MRRs) and cause-specific life-years lost (LYLs). [...]LYLs also allow greater consideration to be given to previously under-represented causes of death in patients with mental disorders, such as cancer. fotografixx/Getty Images A limitation of the study is its focus on a high-income region, restricting the generalisability of the findings. [...]future research in psychiatric epidemiology should include populations that have been largely under-represented in existing studies. [...]the German S3 schizophrenia guideline, published in March, 2019, includes for the first time a separate chapter on the relationship between schizophrenia and a number of physical and mental comorbidities.10 Treatment-related causes, such as medication side-effects, should also be considered as causes of comorbidities in people with mental disorders. Because comorbidities are not always adequately diagnosed, it is essential that clinicians actively monitor a patient's symptoms and use current classification systems, such as the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (soon to be 11th), and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition.