A new study has found that the risk of death due to a sudden heart attack could be four times higher for people with schizophrenia. The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and published in the journal Heart. Schizophrenia is a mental health condition which affects how people think, feel and behave.
The condition can result in hallucinations, delusions, and disorganised thinking and behaviour. When people hallucinate, they see things or hear voices that others can’t see. On the other hand, delusions are beliefs that are not true.
The study says that for those having other types of mental illness such as depression, the death risk is still twice as high, regardless of age, suggesting that an 18-year-old could expect to live 10 years fewer, compared to one of the same age without mental health issues. The researchers said that while having a psychiatric condition is known to heighten death risk due to a sudden cardiac arrest, it is not clear if the risk extends across one’s lifespan. For the study, the researchers looked at the deaths of 18 to 90-year-old Danish residents in 2010.
Over 45,000 people had died that year, of which 6,002 were classified as sudden cardiac deaths, 3,683 in the general population and 2,319 among those with a mental illness. The team found that overall, cases of sudden deaths due to a heart attack were up to 6.5 times more among those having a mental disorder, compared to the general population.
The research.
