(Press-News.org) New research quantifying the risk of admission to hospital for self-harm has identified a raised risk of self-harm among groups of patients with certain physical illnesses. While it is known that psychiatric illnesses are associated with a greatly elevated risk of self-harm, a moderately elevated risk was seen with common physical illnesses such as diabetes, epilepsy and asthma. The research, published today by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, investigated the risk of self-harm comparing people with different psychiatric and physical disorders in England.
Other physical illnesses carrying an increased risk of self-harm include migraine, psoriasis, eczema and inflammatory polyarthropathies. The research team, led by Professor Michael Goldacre, of the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, also found that epilepsy, asthma, eczema and cancers carry a moderately increased risk of suicide.
The new National Suicide Prevention Strategy for England includes several priority groups, including those living with long-term physical health conditions. Authors Dr Arvind Singhal and Dr Jack Ross said: "It is important for physicians, general practitioners and mental health workers to be aware of the physical disorders that are associated with an increased risk of self-harm so that at-risk individuals may be better identified and can be monitored for any psychiatric symptoms and mental distress."
Professor Keith Hawton, Director of the Oxford Centre for Suicide Research and an author of the paper, pointed to the need for greater integration of medical and mental health services.
INFORMATION:
Notes to editors
Risk of self-harm and suicide in people with specific psychiatric and physical disorders: comparisons between disorders using English national record linkage (DOI: 10.1177/0141076814522033) will be published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine at 00:05hrs (UK time) on Thursday 13 February 2014.
For further information or a copy of the paper please contact:
Rosalind Dewar
Media Office Royal Society of Medicine
DL +44 (0) 1580 764713
M +44 (0) 7785 182732
media@rsm.ac.uk
The JRSM is the flagship journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and is published by SAGE. It has full editorial independence from the RSM. It has been published continuously since 1809. Its Editor is Dr Kamran Abbasi.
SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students spanning a wide range of subject areas including business, humanities, social sciences, and science, technology, and medicine. An independent company, SAGE has principal offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC. http://www.sagepublications.com
Diabetes, epilepsy and asthma increase risk of self-harm
2014-02-13
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
A promising new approach for treating leukemia discovered
2014-02-13
A group of researchers at the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) of Université de Montréal discovered a promising new approach to treating leukemia by disarming a gene that is responsible for tumor progression. That gene, known as Brg1 is a key regulator of leukemia stem cells that are the root cause of the disease, resistance to treatment and relapse.
Julie Lessard, principal investigator and her colleagues at IRIC have spent the past four years studying that gene in collaboration with another research group at Stanford University in California. The ...
How memory and schizophrenia are connected
2014-02-13
Many psychiatric disorders are accompanied by memory deficits. Basel scientists have now identified a network of genes that controls fundamental properties of neurons and is important for human brain activity, memory and the development of schizophrenia. Their results have been published in the online edition of the US journal Neuron.
The ability to hold transitory information - e.g. memorizing a telephone number - is a fundamental function of the human brain. This so-called working memory enables us to understand the world that surrounds us. To keep the working ...
Asian longhorned beetles pheromone could be used to manage pest
2014-02-13
Female Asian longhorned beetles lure males to their locations by laying down sex-specific pheromone trails on tree surfaces, according to an international team of researchers. The finding could lead to the development of a tool to manage this invasive pest that affects about 25 tree species in the United States.
"Tens of thousands of hardwood trees, mostly maples, have been cut down and destroyed in New York, Ohio and Massachusetts because of the Asian longhorned beetle," said Kelli Hoover, professor of entomology, Penn State. "We discovered a pheromone produced by females ...
Can-do plan gets women trimmer, healthier, and cuts hot flashes
2014-02-13
CLEVELAND, Ohio (Thursday, February 13, 2014)—A woman can beat middle-aged spread, her disease risks, and her hot flashes with the help of her healthcare provider. And even a short term program can spell success for women and fit into a busy provider's practice, shows a demonstration obesity-fighting and health risk reduction program detailed in an article just published online in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).
Making lifestyle changes can take a lot of work. Programs that have successfully helped women lose weight and reduce their ...
Immunologists from the University of Bonn topple dogma
2014-02-13
An international team of scientists under the leadership of the University of Bonn disproves a dogma: To date, immunologists have assumed that the macrophages functioning as "scavenger cells" can be classified into two different forms. In an extensive search, the researchers have now discovered that these immune cells turn into far more different manifestations. These findings also give rise to completely new therapeutic approaches for many widespread diseases. The results are now being published in the renowned journal Immunity.
In the body, macrophages go on patrol ...
Books rate more negatively after winning award, study finds
2014-02-13
Looking for a good book? Stay away from the award-winning section of the bookstore or library.
New research from Amanda Sharkey of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business finds that a book read after winning a prestigious award will likely be judged more negatively than if it's read in its pre-award days.
In "The Paradox of Publicity: How Awards Can Negatively Affect the Evaluation of Quality," to be published in the March issue of Administrative Science Quarterly, Sharkey and colleague Balázs Kovács of the University of Lugano analyze thousands of reader ...
Study: Beauty not disease motivates teens to wear sunscreen
2014-02-13
After offering information about UV light and sun-protective behaviors, the two health-ed
videos diverge: one describes the increased skin cancer risk of UV exposure and the other
describes effects on appearance including wrinkles and premature aging. Which of these two
videos do you think caused teenagers to use more sunscreen six weeks after it was shown? A
University of Colorado Cancer Center study shows that while teens who watched both videos
learned and retained the same amount of knowledge about UV light and sun-protective behaviors,
only the teens who ...
Air pollution increases risk for hypertension in pregnant women
2014-02-13
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Breathing the air outside their homes may be just as toxic to pregnant women — if not more so — as breathing in cigarette smoke, increasing a mom-to-be's risk of developing deadly complications such as preeclampsia, according to findings from a new University of Florida study.
UF researchers compared birth data with Environmental Protection Agency estimates of air pollution, finding that heavy exposure to four air pollutants led to a significantly increased risk for developing a high blood pressure disorder during pregnancy. The research was published ...
Light-induced degradation in amorphous silicon thin film solar cells
2014-02-13
This news release is available in German. Researchers at the Helmholtz Center Berlin (HZB) have taken a leap forward towards a deeper
understanding of an undesired effect in thin film solar cells based on amorphous silicon – one
that has puzzled the scientific community for the last 40 years. The researchers were able to
demonstrate that tiny voids within the silicon network are partly responsible for reducing solar
cell efficiency by some 10 to 15 percent as soon as you start using them. Their work has now
been published in Physical Review Letters (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.066403).
Amorphous ...
Two new weapons in the battle against bacteria
2014-02-13
This news release is available in German.
Proteins are made up of a chain of amino acids and are vital for all cell processes. Proteases are among the most important types of protein. Like "molecular scissors", they cut other proteins at given positions and thereby execute important cell functions. By cutting the amino acid chains to the right length or breaking proteins apart they, for example, activate or deactivate proteins, decompose defective ones or switch signal sequences that serve to transport proteins to their proper position within a cell.
But proteases ...