In recent decades, life expectancy has increased notably in the population of developed countries thanks to medical advances, improved health systems and efforts to promote healthy behaviors in citizens. However, in people diagnosed with severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, this increase has not been recorded. According to research published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal , people with schizophrenia live three to five years less than the rest of the population and are three times more likely to die , although there are no differences in the causes of death.
The study looked at all deaths that occurred in Ontario, Canada, over a twenty-year period, from 1993 to 2012. Among more than 1.6 million deaths, 31,349 were in people with schizophrenia, who died eight years younger on average than the rest of the population: the general population lives an average of 76 years while schizophrenia patients die at about 68 , generating a gap between both groups.
A problem of inequality
These results indicate, according to the researchers, that patients with schizophrenia have not yet noticed the benefits of improvements in public health strategies , which have managed to reduce deaths from cardiovascular diseases and unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, alcohol consumption and poor diets in the general population. “The study, in addition to documenting staggeringly high death rates, also points to a problem of inequality, ” explains Paul Kurdyak, a researcher at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health and the Ontario Institute for Clinical Evaluation Sciences. “Individuals with schizophrenia do not they benefit in the same way from public health as other patients ”, he continues.
Despite the fact that more studies have been done on the death rate in other mental illnesses than specifically regarding schizophrenia, the high death rate in this group has been demonstrated in small earlier studies from countries like Scandinavia and Australia. “Although there have been numerous calls to help people with severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, and we see positive developments, more effort is required to reduce inequality, ” Kurdyak says.
More side effects
People with schizophrenia have a higher degree of cognitive and functional impairment than patients with other mental illnesses, so their long-term exposure to antipsychotic medications increases side effects, such as increased risk of diabetes and weight gain. Therefore, it is necessary to continue studying in depth whether individuals with schizophrenia need specific health promotion strategies, adapted to their needs, so as to reduce the life expectancy gap between people with schizophrenia and the rest of the population.
“One would expect such a large life expectancy gap between different groups of patients to bring about changes in public health actions,” explains Philip Ward, a researcher at the University of New South Wales. “However, this does not appear to be the case for patients with schizophrenia,” he says.
This study marks a line of research that should continue exploring mortality in patients with schizophrenia and its specific causes, so that the results guide future medical strategies. “Schizophrenia poses a great challenge to health care systems,” Kurdyak concludes.
References:
Evgenia Gatov, Laura Rosella, Maria Chiu, Paul A. Kurdyak, MD. “Trends in standardized mortality among individuals with schizophrenia, 1993-2012: a population-based, repeated cross-sectional study” (2017). Canadian Medical Association Journal.
