Leo Sher, M.D.

A research work, “Mortality in patients with major depressive disorder: A nationwide population-based cohort study with 11-year follow-up” has been published in European Psychiatry (1).

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a leading cause of disability and premature mortality around the world. This population-based cohort study compared the overall survival between patients with MDD and non-MDD controls.

The authors used longitudinal patient data from the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund database, which contains healthcare service data for the Hungarian population. Patients with MDD were selected and matched 1:1 to individuals without MDD.

Overall, 471,773 individuals were included in the study. Patients with MDD had significantly worse overall survival in comparison to non-MDD controls. The estimated life expectancy of patients with MDD was 7.8 and 6.0 years less than that of controls aged 20 and 45 years, respectively. Adjusted analyses based on the presence of baseline comorbidities also showed that patients with MDD had worse survival than non-MDD controls. After 11 years of follow-up, the cumulative conversions from MDD to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia were 6.8% and 3.4%, respectively. Patients who converted to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia had significantly worse overall survival than non-converted patients. Compared with the matched non-MDD controls, the MDD group had a significantly higher percentage of patients with various comorbid conditions including cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and diabetes.

The results of this study suggest that early detection and effective treatment of MDD may reduce the mortality in patients with MDD.

Reference

1. Bitter I, Szekeres G, Cai Q, Feher L, Gimesi-Orszagh J, Kunovszki P, El Khoury AC, Dome P, Rihmer Z. Mortality in patients with major depressive disorder: A nationwide population-based cohort study with 11-year follow-up. Eur Psychiatry. 2024 Sep 30;67(1):e63. doi: 10.1192/j.eurpsy.2024.1771.