Suicide often harms surviving spouse mentally and physically

Philip Copitch, Ph.D. – Author of Change: How to bring real change to your life: The psychology and secrets of highly effective people

A report was published online in JAMA Psychiatry. It looked at the effects of suicide on the surviving spouse.

The researches combed a national register that included almost 7 million people in Denmark from 1980 to 2014. The registry looked at nearly 5,000 men and 11,000 women whose spouses committed suicide.

The study found male spouses of partners who died by suicide had a 70 percent higher risk of developing mental health problems than partners of those who succumbed to other causes of death, such as illness or accident. For women, the risk of developing a mental health disorder was 50 percent higher.

The researchers noted that surviving spouses are more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders. Surviving spouses were themselves at an increased risk of suicide.

Additionally, physical ailments, including cirrhosis of the liver, sleeping disorders, cancer, and back pain developed at a higher rate in surviving spouses than the population at large.

Read the study: JAMA Psychiatry. Published online March 22, 2017. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.0218  Available as a PDF.