Serious Medical and Psychiatric Illnesses: How Often Are They Comorbid?

Despite the assumption that psychiatric patients are more prone than the general population to medical illness, the frequency of nonpsychiatric comorbidity remains unclear. These researchers used a stringent measure of medical illness — death from coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, and seven common cancers — and examined a database that covered 8 million patients in 741 general practices in the U.K. over 15 years.

Cases were 46,136 patients diagnosed with psychotic disorders (mostly schizophrenia and delusional disorder) or bipolar disorder. For each case patient, investigators randomly selected six controls without severe psychiatric illness (n = 300,246). Hazard ratios were adjusted for age, sex, and 5-year calendar period.

Serious psych…