Mental Disorders Are Bad for Your Health

The higher medical morbidity and mortality in people with psychiatric disorders are generally thought to occur primarily with more-severe psychiatric illness and to be associated primarily with suicide, accidents, poor health habits, and treatment nonadherence. These researchers prospectively followed 1,095,338 nonadopted Swedish men examined at the time of military conscription (1969–1994) to analyze the influence of psychiatric disorders on all-cause mortality. Mean follow-up was 23 years.

After adjustment for covariates and exclusion of deaths from suicide, the risk for death was increased in men diagnosed at conscription with psychoses, depressive disorders, “neurotic and adjustment disorders,” or substance use disorders, compared with m…