One in Four People With Schizophrenia or Bipolar Have Multiple Physical Health Problems

Astudy inLancet Psychiatry reports that adults with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are more than twice as likely as those without these disorders to have multiple physical health problems like heart disease or diabetes. Further, the presence of multiple physical problems was more common in adults with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder than the presence of multiple psychiatric disorders.“While health services and treatment guidelines often operate on the assumption that individuals have a single principal diagnosis, these results attest to the clinical complexity many people with severe mental illness face in relation to burden of chronic disease,” wrote Sean Halstead, M.D., of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and colleagues.Halstead and colleagues collected data from 82 observational studies of adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorder or bipolar disorder that assessed the prevalence of co-occurring physical or psychiatric conditions (though only a few studies examined both). The combined data included more than 1.6 million adults with one of these disorders and over 13 million adults with neither disorder (controls).Overall, 25% of adults with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder had two or more physical health problems, while 13% had three or more physical health problems. In comparison, 14% of these adults had two or more psychiatric problems (on top of their index diagnosis). The prevalence of multiple physical health problems was roughly the sam...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: bipolar disorder chronic disease comorbidities Lancet Psychiatry physical health premature mortality schizophrenia Source Type: research