Suicide and Mental Illness in the Elderly

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Abstract
This report deals with the relation of suicide to mental illness in the elderly. Our investigation of this relation proceeds from the following two points of view: First, we asked whether the fact that the elderly are most at risk of committing suicide is confounded with their increased psychiatric morbidity. Second, we asked to what extent suicides of older mentally ill persons are definitely created by their mental illness. The sample includes 310 suicides of psychiatric in-patients. These were explored in the course of a multicentre study of 6 psychiatric state hospitals in the south of the Federal Republic of Germany. The method of analysis involved the motives of the suicidal acts. Results demonstrate that the age is an autonomous risk factor and not to be confounded with the psychiatric morbidity. Psychiatric morbidity of older suicides is not sufficient to explain the suicidal act. Moreover, we found that if mental illness played a part, motives reflecting aspects of chronicity predominated motives reflecting psychopathology (i.e. feeling of being persecuted, loosing mind) of the suicidal patients. Results are discussed with special reference to preventing and managing suicides in the elderly.

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