Showing posts with label maternal death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maternal death. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Anniversary of Parent’s Death Linked to Increased Suicide Risk in Some Adult Children

The anniversary of a parent’s death appears to be associated with an increased risk of suicide among women, according to a report published today in JAMA Network Open.

“In this case-crossover study using Swedish national register data, we found evidence of an anniversary reaction among women, with an increased risk of suicide most consistently observed during the 2-day period following the anniversary of a parent’s death. Among men, we observed a reduced risk of suicide around the anniversary,” wrote Alessandra Grotta, Ph.D., of Stockholm University and colleagues.

Grotta and colleagues relied on linked data from 1990 to 2016 from multiple Swedish registers for the study. The researchers focused their analysis on adults aged 18 to 65 who had experienced the death of a parent and later died of suicide. With each adult in the study serving as his or her own control, the researchers compared the association between the anniversary of the parent’s death and suicide with the association between periods before or after the anniversary of the parent’s death and suicide.

The study included 7,694 individuals (2,255 of whom were women) who died by suicide. The median age at suicide was 55 years, and the median time between parental death and suicide was 7 years, the researchers noted.

“There was evidence of an anniversary reaction among women, with a 67% increase in the odds of suicide when exposed to the period from the anniversary to 2 days after the anniversary, compared with when not being exposed (odds ratio [OR], 1.67),” the researchers wrote. “The risk was particularly pronounced among maternally bereaved women (OR, 2.29) and women who were never married (OR, 2.08), although the latter was not statistically significant.”

Additionally, the authors found an increased risk of suicide from the day before up to the anniversary of a parent’s death for women who were aged 18 to 34 years (OR, 3.46) and those 50 to 65 years (OR, 2.53) when their parent died. Suicide risk for men was lower from the day before up to the anniversary (OR, 0.57).

“Although the loss of a parent during childhood has received attention in previous research, bereavement following the loss of a parent experienced during adulthood has been largely overlooked,” Grotta and colleagues wrote. “These findings suggest that families and social and health care professionals need to consider anniversary reactions in suicide prevention among adults who have lost a parent, especially bereaved women.”

For related information, see the Psychiatric Services article “Underutilization of Mental Health Services Among Bereaved Caregivers With Prolonged Grief Disorder.”

(Image: iStock/FatCamera)




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Friday, June 14, 2019

Drugs, Suicide Among Leading Causes of Postpartum Death in California, Study Finds


Drug-related deaths are second only to deaths from obstetric complications among women in California who die within a year of giving birth, a study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology has found. Suicide ranked seventh as a cause of death in this population.

Sidra Goldman-Mellor, Ph.D., of the University of California, Merced, and Claire E. Margerison, Ph.D., of Michigan State University analyzed the health records of more than 1 million women who delivered a living infant in California hospitals between 2010 and 2012. They found that in that period, 300 women died within a year of giving birth and that drug-related causes and suicide together were responsible for roughly 1 in 6 of those deaths. Other causes of death in the women included circulatory system disease, cancer, other unintentional injuries, and homicide.

Three-fourths of the women who died from drug-related causes or suicide had visited an emergency department (ED) or hospital at least once between giving birth and dying—a finding that suggests an opportunity for screening, Goldman-Mellor and Margerison wrote.

“This observation suggests that ED and hospital visits may serve as a point of identification of—and eventually, intervention [for]—women at risk for postpartum death. Although examining details of these visits was beyond the scope of this study, this finding warrants further exploration in other samples, including examining the nature of these interactions to identify predictors of maternal death and/or points of intervention,” they wrote.

The researchers also found that although black women had the highest overall rate of postpartum death, non-Hispanic white women and women whose delivery costs were covered by Medicaid or paid by the patient had an elevated risk of drug-related death or suicide.

In discussing the limitations of their study, the study authors stated that data from California may not apply to the entire nation and called for further research.

“An important first step would be further documentation of this problem across the U.S., which will require that all state Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs) categorize deaths due to drugs, suicide, and other non-obstetric causes as medical deaths that fall within the scope of their review, particularly in [the] wake of congressional legislation providing funding for all states to form MMRCs,” they wrote.

For related information, see the Psychiatric News article “Is Postpartum Depression a Unique Psychiatric Disorder?” and the Psychiatric Services article “Use of Text Messaging for Postpartum Depression Screening and Information Provision.”

(Image: iStock/Halfpoint)

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