Abstract
Objective
We would like to exam whether epilepsy patients in Taiwan have a high risk of attempted and completed suicide.
Methods
In this study, we used a subset of the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) of Taiwan. Inpatients (≥ 18 years) who received a new diagnosis of epilepsy between 2000 and 2011 were enrolled in the epilepsy cohort. The epilepsy and comparison cohorts included 68,543 patients and 2-fold controls respectively. We calculated the adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) for suicide attempts after adjustment for age, sex, monthly income, the urbanization level, occupation, and comorbidity.
Results
The epilepsy cohort had a 2.06-fold risk of suicide attempts (95% CI = 1.65–2.56) compared with the control cohort. The suicide attempt risk did not significantly differ between men and women and between patients with and without psychiatric comorbidity. The mortality risk after a suicide attempt was higher in the epilepsy cohort than in the comparison cohort (aHR = 1.66, 95% CI = 1.02–2.69).
Conclusion
Epilepsy is an independent and predisposing factor for suicide attempt. These results provide important information for clinicians and governments to prevent suicide in epilepsy patients in Asian countries.
