Parkinson's disease and suicide: a profile of suicide victims with Parkinson's disease in a population-based study during the years 1988-2002 in Northern Finland

Objective We studied the prevalence of hospital-treated Parkinson's disease (PD) among suicide victims and the profile of these persons, taking into account suicide attempts, timing of depression and comorbid somatic diseases. Methods The database of this study consisted of suicide victims aged 50 years of age or older (n = 555) during a fourteen-year period in the province of Oulu in Northern Finland. Results Hospital-treated Parkinson's disease occurred in 1.6% of the subjects, indicating a rather low prevalence of suicide in this group of patients. The persons with PD had attempted suicide earlier in 44% of the cases, while the corresponding percentage for other victims in older age was 9.9% (p = 0.009 Fischer exact test). Conclusions Based on the case characteristics of our study the profile of PD person who completed suicide was as follows: male subject with recently diagnosed disease, living in rural area, having multiple physical illnesses, and having attempted suicide earlier. Psychiatric consultation is thus highly recommended for the PD patients with this disease profile. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.