Patients with schizophrenia frequently use, abuse, and become dependent on psychoactive substances such as alcohol. For patients with schizophrenia, alcohol use had a variety of effects, such as more frequent use of other drugs, more severe psychotic symptoms, poorer medication adherence, more severe depression, and a greater risk of alcohol-related diseases.
Meanwhile, alcohol consumption has been widely confirmed as a population-level risk for suicide. The age of initiating alcohol consumption, history of alcohol use, and family history of alcohol use were associated with suicidal behaviors. However, due to the strict restrictions on alcohol drinking after admission of schizophrenia in hospitals in China, few studies have paid attention to the relationship between alcohol consumption and suicidal behaviors.
Dr. ZHANG Xiangyang and his group from the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) conducted a cross-sectional study among Chinese male chronic patients with schizophrenia.
To investigate the relationship between suicidal behavior and the history of alcohol drinking, they recruited 616 male inpatients with schizophrenia and collected their demographic characteristics, as well as the history of suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, and alcohol drinking. Five-factor model of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale was used to assess their psychopathological symptoms.
According to the researchers, among 616 male patients with schizophrenia, 31.33% had a history of alcohol drinking. Patients with a history of alcohol use were more likely to smoke and had more severe positive and depressive symptoms than those without a history of alcohol use.
At the same time, they had higher rates of lifetime suicide attempts and suicidal ideation, indicating that alcohol use history was also associated with a higher risk of suicide. This result remained significant after controlling for relevant demographic and clinical variables.
Results suggested that a history of alcohol use could increase the incidence of suicide attempts and suicidal ideation in male patients with chronic schizophrenia. This finding may provide some inspiration for suicide intervention in clinical work.
The study entitled "Alcohol use history increases the likelihood of suicide behavior among male chronic patients with schizophrenia in a Chinese population" has been published on Mar. 22 in Suicide & Life-threatening Behavior.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the International Partnership Program of CAS.
