Young men who display suicidal behavior were likely to be later diagnosed with psychosis, according to findings recently published in JAMA Network Open.
“Most primary care physicians see few new cases of psychosis each year and therefore have little opportunity to increase personal experience. Ideally, primary care physicians would have better information about the symptoms that could help them identify patients at [clinical high risk] and who should undergo further assessment for psychotic symptoms,” Sarah A. Sullivan, PhD, of the Centre for Academic Primary Care at the University of Bristol, U.K., and colleagues wrote.
Researchers studied 13 prespecified symptoms culled from the literature in 81,793 adults who did not have a psychosis diagnosis and 11,690 adults who had. Of all participants, 57.4% were women and 40% were older than 60 years.
Researchers found the strongest association with being diagnosed with psychosis occurred in patients who had displayed suicidal behavior (OR = 19.06; 95% CI, 16.55-21.95). The highest positive predictive value for suicidal behavior was in men younger than 24 years of age (33%; 95% CI, 24.2-43.2), followed by women aged 25 to 34 years (19.6%; 95% CI, 13.7-27.2).