A group of researchers aimed to determine the risks of premature mortality and suicide in people with common noncommunicable diseases, with and without psychiatric disorder comorbidity.

In this longitudinal study of over 1 million patients with chronic health diseases, researchers observed increased risks of all-cause and suicide mortality in individuals with psychiatric comorbidities. Improving assessment, treatment, and follow-up of people with comorbid psychiatric disorders may reduce the risk of mortality in people with chronic noncommunicable diseases. More than 7% of the patients died of any cause within 5 years, and 0.3% died from suicide. These risks were more than doubled in patients with psychiatric comorbidities compared to those without such comorbidities.

By comparing each of the patients with their unaffected siblings, the authors accounted for familial risk factors that were shared between the siblings (e.g., genetic and childhood environmental risk factors). Psychiatric comorbidity was consistently associated with elevated rates of premature mortality and suicide in the sibling comparison analyses and persisted following additional adjustments for sociodemographic factors and body mass index (BMI).