Ideation, självmordsförsök och genomförda självmord i dansk studie

The 61% of patients following the most common trajectory reported suicidal thoughts once or a few times within the past year, and this frequency decreased over time. One-third of the participants experienced suicidal ideation sometimes or frequently in a pattern that continued over the full decade. The final 6% of participants comprised the “frequent-increasing” trajectory group, whose frequent thoughts of suicide worsened over time.

This latter group had 6.6-times greater odds of attempting suicide after 5 years of followup, compared to the majority with less frequent suicidal ideation. The odds of a suicide attempt were 2.8 times greater for those with stable, frequent thoughts of suicide compared to the “low-decreasing” group. Yet actual suicide rates did not differ at 5 or 10 years among any of the 3 groups. Eight patients died by suicide during the decade of followup.

Those experiencing frequent thoughts of suicide, whether it remained stable or increased, had 4.5- to 4.7-times greater odds of persistent suicidal ideation than those with a low and decreasing trajectory at 5 years after the start of the study. These odds dropped only slightly, to 3.2 times greater among the frequent-increasing patients and 4.2 times greater among the frequent-stable patients, at 10 years followup compared to those with infrequent suicidal thoughts.