Risk factors for suicide among psychiatric patients that have experienced compulsory mental care
What drives the high suicide risk among young adults in compulsory mental care, and how can we better understand and mitigate it?
Suicide is the leading cause of death among young adults in Sweden and worldwide. Psychiatric inpatients generally face an elevated risk of suicide, yet this risk is rarely studied within the subgroup of individuals admitted under compulsory mental care. While compulsory mental care decisions are often made to prevent suicide, the actual effectiveness of this approach remains unclear. Currently, there is a significant gap in our understanding of both the underlying risk and the specific risk factors for suicide among patients treated under compulsory mental care.
The primary objective of this project is to utilize epidemiological methods on a national 40-year cohort (1973-2013) of registry data to investigate the suicide risk and identify associated risk factors among compulsory mental care patients. The insights gained from this research will inform improved clinical decision-making, with the aim of reducing the suicide rate in this vulnerable population.
People involved in the project
The principal investigator of the project is John Wallert, clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, KI. He has expertise in registry-based research and predictive modelling. Christian Rück, co-PI, psychiatrist and Professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, KI. He has expertise in leading large clinical and multimodal projects to completion and implementation. Leoni Grossmann, MSc. Roles: PhD student, data preprocessing, analysis, and writing on descriptive modelling and risk factor estimation. Björn Bråstad, amanuens, clinical psychologist in training. Fredrik Johansson, PhD. Role: Statistical modelling and study design. Robin Fondberg, PhD, psychologist. Roles: postdoc, data preprocessing, analysis and writing on causal inference with observational data. Lorena Fernández de la Cruz, co-PI, is a senior researcher at KI with expertise in register-based research including suicide and risk factors in psychiatric populations. Professor Seena Fazel, co-PI, Oxford University is a world-renowned expert in forensic psychiatry. Professor Fazel also does pioneering work on risk prediction tools for suicide and risk behaviours. Bo Runeson, KI, will provide the team with expertise in suicidology. David Mataix-Cols, Professor at KI, a highly cited researcher with 20 years of experience in psychiatric research, including suicide risk in common mental disorders. Julia Boberg is a clinical psychologist and PhD student. Roles: study design, data analysis, and interpretation. Paul Lichtenstein, Professor in genetic epidemiology and study director of the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (MEB) at KI. Professor Lichtenstein is a top-cited researcher with extensive experience of large-scale studies using nationwide registers, hereditary study designs, and genetic data. Role: Study design, result interpretation, general methodological expertise. Magnus Boman, Professor in Intelligent Software Systems and a computational epidemiologist at the Royal Institute of Technology. James Crowley, Associate Professor in Genetics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) and affiliated to KI. Role: Expertise in biological inheritance. Matthew Halvorsen, post doc at UNC-Chapel-Hill. Role: Cluster computing. Ekaterina Ivanova, clinical psychologist and post doc at KI. Role: Data management. Manne Sjöstrand is a psychiatrist and medical ethicist with expertise in the ethical issues involved in risk estimation and clinical decision making.
Group members involved in the project
Rücklab - Psychiatry research at Karolinska Institutet 