Suicide and Neurological Disorders

Neurological disorders have been linked to suicide, but the risk across a broad spectrum of neurological disorders remains to be assessed.

Neurological disorders were estimated to account for 11.6% of the total global burden of disability-adjusted life-years and to represent the underlying cause for 16.5% of total global deaths in 2016

In studies conducted in Denmark over a 36-year period (1980 – 2016), diagnosis of a neurological disorder was associated with a small but statistically significant increased risk of death by suicide.

The study observed 7,300,395 individuals (49.9% males)in all, 35 483 persons died by suicide (77.4% males, mean age, 51.9 years;), of whom 14.7% had a neurological disorder.

Neurological Disorders include:

• head injury

• stroke

• epilepsy

• polyneuropathy

• diseases of myoneural junction

• Parkinson disease

• multiple sclerosis

• central nervous system infections

• meningitis

• encephalitis

• amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

• Huntington disease

• dementia

• intellectual disability

• brain diseases