What Is the Fatality Rate for Those With Depression?

Depression itself is not fatal, but it can cause suicidal thoughts and attempts by the affected individual.

History

• In an article in a 1970 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, Samuel Guze and Eli Robins estimated that the rate of successful suicides was 15 percent of total deaths. In recent years, however, psychiatric researchers have challenged this figure.

Hospitalization and Suicide

• An article published in the December 2000 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry puts the suicide risk at 8.6 percent for patients with a history of hospitalization for both unipolar and bipolar depression.

Other Factors

• An Australian study published in the October 1999 issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders notes that successful suicides are more common in men, those with a substance abuse problem and those with a history of psychiatric hospitalization.

Trends

• Between 1995 and 2005, suicides increased 0.7 percent overall, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Injury Research and Policy. This is the first increase in the death rate in more than a decade.

Considerations

• Death rates due to suicide change every year, so the numbers are expressed in percentages of total deaths rather than in actual numbers. These rates are updated as new research is done.