People with traumatic brain injury at increased risk for suicide : JAMA

People with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are twice at the risk for suicide as compared to the people without TBI, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The researchers conducted the study using nationwide registers covering 7,418,391 individuals living in Denmark with 164,265,624 person-years of follow-up. Of the participants, 7.6 percent had a medical contact for TBI.

• The absolute suicide rate was 41 versus 20 per 100,000 person-years among those with versus without TBI, with an adjusted incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 1.90.


• Severe TBI was associated with an IRR of 2.38 compared with no TBI, whereas mild TBI and skull fracture without documented TBI had IRRs of 1.81 and 2.01, respectively.


• There was a correlation for suicide risk with the number of medical contacts for TBI versus those with no TBI contacts: for one, two, and three or more TBI contacts the IRRs were 1.75, 2.31, and 2.59, respectively.


• Temporal proximity since last medical contact for TBI was associated with suicide risk, with an IRR of 3.67 within the first six months.

"In this nationwide registry-based retrospective cohort study individuals with medical contact for TBI, compared with the general population without TBI, had increased suicide risk," concluded the authors.