Response to PHQ Item May Predict Suicide Risk Among Patients With Psychosis

Answers to a specific questionnaire item about thoughts of self-harm strongly predicted which patients with a psychotic disorder would attempt suicide in the next 90 days, according to astudy in the MarchPsychiatric Services.Suicidal behavior is especially common among individuals with psychotic disorders: 1 in 20 die by suicide and more than 1 in 4 attempt suicide at some point, wrote Gregory E. Simon, M.D., M.P.H., of the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, and colleagues. “Our findings indicate that individuals with psychotic disorders provide clinically useful responses to simple self-report questions about thoughts of death or self-harm.”Researchers studied electronic health records over more than six years from seven large integrated health systems in nine states to identify adults with a diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum psychosis, schizoaffective disorder, or unspecified psychosis. They identified all outpatient visits during which these patients completed the nine-itemPatient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and tracked their suicide attempts or completed suicides for 30 days and 90 day after their visits. Altogether, the study sample included 33,000 visits by nearly 6,000 patients.More than 1 in 10 outpatients with a psychotic disorder reported frequent thoughts of death or self-harm on PHQ-9 item 9, which asks “Over the past 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Gregory Simon PHQ-9 Psychiatric Services suicidal ideation suicide attempt suicide prediction Source Type: research