Association of comorbidity of mood and anxiety disorders with suicidal behaviors

Abstract

Background: Suicidal behaviors are strong predictors of suicide death and are much more common than completed suicides. This study aimed to describe the prevalence and transitions of suicidal behaviors in an Inner Mongolian City of China and to explore the association of comorbidity of mood and anxiety disorders with suicidal behaviors.

Method: This study was a cross-sectional study. The Composite International Diagnostic Interview-3.0 (CIDI-3.0) was administered face-to-face to make diagnoses of mental disorders, measure suicidal behaviors and collect social demographic information.

Results: A total of 4528 respondents were interviewed. The lifetime prevalence of suicidal ideation, suicide plan and suicide attempt were 1.52%, 0.70% and 0.54%, respectively. Among those respondents with suicidal ideation, 21.1% of them had planned suicide attempt, and 6.6% had unplanned suicide attempt. When comorbidity was not considered in the model, mood and anxiety disorders were the most important drivers of suicidal behaviors. However, when including the comorbidity, those respondents with mood and anxiety disorders, rather than those with a specific disorder only, had a significant positive association with suicidal behaviors. In the model, being unemployed, rural, female, no income and childhood adversities were also related to suicidal behaviors.

Limitations: There might be systematic recall bias as the data were based on retrospective self-reports. Suicide is a sensitive question, so the respondents were probably ashamed to talk about suicidal behaviors.

Conclusions: The comorbidity of mood and anxiety disorders was the most important risk factor of suicidal behaviors. Special attention should be paid to those patients with this comorbidity.

Keywords: Anxiety disorder; Comorbidity; Composite International Diagnostic Interview; Mood disorder; Risk factors; Suicidal behavior.