Half of those who die by suicide had no diagnosed psychiatric risk factors like depression.The absence of genetic risk factors for depression suggests something “meaningfully different” was in play.The study couldn’t say how many of those who died by suicide were depressed but not diagnosed. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not uncommon when someone dies by suicide for bereft loved ones to ponder \u2014 and sometimes beat themselves up over \u2014 how they missed the signs leading up to the death.<\/p>\n
A new study from the University of Utah offers both comforting and frustrating new evidence that there might not have been any traditional signals of a struggle. While a death by suicide for some is preceded by suicidal ideation and behavior, including survived attempts, about half of those who take their own lives have no documented suicidal thoughts or behaviors and no known mental health conditions linked to suicide risk, such as depression. <\/p>\n
There were no clear indicators of risk.<\/p>\n
Those are the findings of a genetic study in which university researchers teamed up with the Utah Office of the Medical Examiner to try to learn more about the drivers of suicide, using genotyping data from 2,769 de-identified electronic health records and clinical notes of individuals who died by suicide. They thoroughly analyzed the genetic data of those who died to analyze genetic risk.<\/p>\n
The findings are published in JAMA Network Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n The study showed that those who died by suicide without earlier suicidal behaviors had fewer psychiatric diagnoses and underlying genetic risk factors for mental health conditions than those who exhibited warning signs, according to Hilary Coon, a professor of psychiatry in the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah and the study\u2019s first author.<\/p>\n She told Deseret News that the sheer number of suicide deaths with no previous indicators, including depression diagnosis, suggests it\u2019s not just a matter of many not having sought treatment or due to gaps in screening or care. It indicates that paying attention to mental health remains very important, but that emphasis alone is not likely to identify all who may ultimately end their own lives. <\/p>\n \u201cMaybe we need to think about what people struggle with in a more broad way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Suicide a multifaceted issue<\/p>\n The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2023, 49,000 individuals in the U.S. ended their own lives, making suicide the 11th leading cause of death nationally.<\/p>\n Coon describes suicide as a complicated behavior. She noted that what\u2019s going on with someone who is young and impulsive or dealing with significant depression is different from someone later in life who has chronic health conditions or other stressors, for instance. She spoke of suicide survivors who said they were not depressed or anxious, but rather were in situations that felt unmanageable.<\/p>\n She also noted that at some point everyone experiences traumas and events that are challenging and most don\u2019t take their lives. But the difference between those who do and those who don\u2019t is hard to untangle.<\/p>\n Traditional screening is likely ineffective in many cases, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cPrior suicidality is the most robust estimator of suicide death, but the association with this estimator is imperfect, and many suicide deaths occur in its absence,\u201d per the study.<\/p>\n Regarding clinical interventions, the study said \u201ca focus solely on mental illness risk reduction may be less effective for individuals for whom this underlying liability may be substantially lower.\u201d It added that \u201cfurther understanding of clinical characteristics, underlying genetic liabilities, and external exposures\u201d in those cases without known previous suicidal behaviors or mental health challenges \u201cwill be required to direct more targeted interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cClinicians do a good job of understanding people who have warning signs. The others, we don\u2019t know who they are,\u201d Coon said.<\/p>\n Screening risk factors<\/p>\n When they looked at the genetic data, the researchers found those without earlier suicidal ideation and behavior had fewer risk factors for a variety of psychiatric conditions \u2014 not just depression, but also anxiety, Alzheimer\u2019s disease and post traumatic stress disorder. They appeared to have less genetic vulnerability to other conditions, like heart disease. In a news release about the study, the researchers said that \u201cthis group isn\u2019t any more likely than the general population to have milder conditions like depressed mood and neuroticism,\u201d either. <\/p>\n The researchers note some limitations, including that some with previous suicidal notions may not have had those captured in the data.<\/p>\n They also noted most of those in the data were of European ancestry, so findings might not be generalizable to all groups.<\/p>\n Coon said that future research will try to tease out some of the hidden risk factors, including links between suicide and chronic pain or major medical issues. <\/p>\n She and her colleagues are also trying to figure out what factors might be protective against suicide. People in similar situations have different degrees of resilience.<\/p>\n Coon is careful to point out that genetic risk factors that may play a role still have a very small effect on risk overall and that none of them actually cause suicide. As the background material notes, \u201cEnvironmental and societal contexts are crucial contributors to risk, and understanding the interplay between the environmental and underlying biology will be essential to discovering who\u2019s at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s hoping the research they\u2019ve done will help identify other factors and their contexts outside of mental distress that contribute to risk so that suicides can be prevented.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope our work will begin to define subsets of individuals at risk, and also the contexts in which these risk characteristics may be important,\u201d Coon said in the news release. \u201cIf people have a certain type of clinical diagnosis that makes them particularly vulnerable within particular environmental contexts, they still may not ever say they\u2019re suicidal. We hope our work may help reveal traits and contexts associated with high risk so that doctors can deliver care more effectively and specifically. \u201d<\/p>\n Coon also suggested resources for those who may be struggling:<\/p>\n Call 988<\/a> to reach a 24\/7 free, confidential support line for suicidal crisis or emotional distress. On the Wasatch Front, the Huntsman Mental Health Institute Crisis Care Center<\/a> offers 24\/7 walk-in mental health services for adults. Additional information and assistance can be found through the Utah Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Half of those who die by suicide had no diagnosed psychiatric risk factors like depression.The absence of genetic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[102,1906,6623,10268,11168,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-311487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth","11":"tag-news-division","12":"tag-news-feed-national","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}