Living with cancer can be emotionally devastating. Now, two expansive studies underscore the scale of the burden a cancer diagnosis and treatment can have on patients' mental health and risk of suicide.
In one, a meta-analysis of 28 studies that included more than 22 million patients, researchers found that among people with cancer, the suicide rate was nearly twice that of the general population. The highest risk was among patients with poor prognoses.
In the other — an analysis of health records from 460,000 people who had been variously diagnosed with 26 cancer types, more than 1% of patients reported engaging in self-harm following their cancer diagnosis. Rates were higher among those who already had been diagnosed with a psychiatric illness.
"Despite their different approaches and outcomes, the two studies emphasize the huge importance of ongoing work to implement appropriate screening tools and improve access to supportive care" following a cancer diagnosis and during treatment, according to authors of a commentary that accompanied the studies, which were published March 28 in Nature Medicine."A sensible strategy may be to approach patients early in their cancer journey and to place special focus on those cancers with higher rates of psychiatric burden and/or suicide risk," the editorialists write.
