Gatov E, et al. - The mortality time trends and premature mortality among individuals with and without schizophrenia over a 20-year period is analyzed in this study. The outcome suggests that the specialized approaches may be required to close the persistent 3-fold relative mortality gap with the general population although mortality rates among people with schizophrenia have declined over the past 2 decades.

Methods

• For this research, they designed a population-based, repeated cross-sectional study.
• In this study, they identified all individual deaths that occurred in Ontario between 1993 and 2012 in persons aged 15 and over.
• They plotted overall and cause-specific age- and sex-standardized mortality rates (ASMRs), stratified all-cause ASMR trends by sociodemographic attributes, and examined premature mortality utilizing years of potential life lost.
• Moreover, they calculated mortality rate ratios (MRRs) utilizing negative binomial regression with adjustment for age, sex, income, rurality and year of death.

Results

• In this study, they recognized 31349 deaths among persons with schizophrenia, and 1589902 deaths among those without schizophrenia.
• Mortality rates among people with schizophrenia were 3 times higher than among those without schizophrenia (adjusted MRR 3.12, 95% confidence interval 3.06-3.17).
• All-cause ASMRs in both groups declined in parallel over the examination time frame, by about 35%, and were higher for men, for those with low income and for rural dwellers.
• The absolute ASMR difference also declined throughout the study period (from 16.15 to 10.49 deaths per 1000 persons).
• Cause-specific ASMRs were greater among those with schizophrenia, with circulatory conditions accounting for most deaths between 1993 and 2012, whereas neoplasms became the leading cause of death for those without schizophrenia after 2005.
• Individuals with schizophrenia also died, on average, 8 years younger than those without schizophrenia, losing more potential years of life.