Inflammatory bowel disease and completed suicide in Danish adults

Abstract

Background: The risk of suicide is increased among people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD); however, most of the evidence regarding this association comes from studies of all-cause mortality, with small numbers of people who have committed suicide, or from clinical case reports. The current study examined the association between the two forms of IBD: Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), and completed suicide in a population-based sample.

Methods: Data for this nested case-control study were obtained from the Danish national healthcare and social registries. We included 27,053 cases who completed suicide between January 1, 1981, and December 31, 2006. Controls were selected from the general population and matched to cases on gender, date of birth, and calendar time (n = 551,060).

Results: There was an increased rate of suicide among participants with both CD (odds ratio [OR] = 1.6, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.1, 2.3) and UC (OR = 1.9, 95% CI: 1.4, 2.4), when adjusting for the matched factors and identified confounders.

Conclusions: The current study suggests that physicians treating IBD patients should be vigilant about expressions of suicidal ideation or signs and symptoms of self-harm.