Severe Mental Illness

This chapter examines the role of severe mental illness in suicide. Understanding motivations for suicide cannot be complete without addressing the way in which mental illness interacts with other risk factors and triggering events. Among our overall sample, 656 of 1280 cases were identified as having psychological problems. Victims were most often diagnosed with depression (75%), bipolar disorder (7%), schizophrenia (2%), multiple diagnoses (9%), and miscellaneous other diagnoses (7%). The presence of any kind of mental illness can increase the risk of suicide, but the most prevalent mental illness found in completed suicides is clinical depression.