Chronic pain, heartburn and CV risk

Chronic pain increases suicide risk

JAMA Psychiatry (2013) doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.908

People suffering from non-cancer pain - especially back, migraine and psychogenic - are at increased risk of committing suicide, according to an American retrospective analysis of 4,863,086 people aged at least 18 years.

Arthritis was the most common painful condition, experienced by 42.7 per cent of those analysed, followed by back pain (22.8 per cent), neuropathic pain (5.4 per cent), headache or tension headache (3.7 per cent), migraine (1.7 per cent), fibromyalgia (1.6 per cent) and psychogenic pain (0.4 per cent). Over the next three years, 4823 (0.01 per cent) people committed suicide.