People with severe mental illness (SMI), such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, are up to four times more likely to have two or more chronic physical health conditions. A total of one in seven people with SMI also have two or more additional psychiatric conditions. These illnesses reduce life expectancy by 10 to 20 years on average, which is driven by the significant physical and psychological health challenges people with severe mental illness face.
The ratio of chronic physical health conditions was higher in younger SMI populations (40 years of age or less, at 3.99 odds ratio), compared with populations older than 40 years, at 1.55 odds ratio. For absolute prevalence, 25% of those with SMI have physical multimorbidity, and 14% have psychiatric multimorbidity.
These findings were reported in “Prevalence Of Multimorbidity In People With And Without Severe Mental Illness: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis” by Sean Halstead, M.D.; Chester Cao, M.D.; Grímur Høgnason Mohr, M.D.; and colleagues. The researchers analyzed journal sources (including the CINAHL database of nursing and health literature, the Embase biomedical and pharmacological bibliographic database of published literature, the PubMed online database hosted by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and the PsycINFO database of abstracts of literature in the field of psychology from the American Psychological Association). Publications were search from inception until February 15, 2024 for observational studies that measured multimorbidity prevalence. From control studies, a random-effects meta-analysis compared odds of physical multimorbidity between people with and without severe mental illness. The goal was to estimate the absolute prevalence of both physical and psychiatric multimorbidity in people with SMI, and also compare the odds of physical multimorbidity prevalence against people without SMI.
For more information, contact: Sean Halstead, Ph.D. Student, Faculty of Medicine, Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, The University of Queensland, The Park Centre for Mental Health Treatment Research and Education, Level 3, Dawson House, Brisbane, Queensland Australia; 4006; Email: s.halstead@uq.edu.au; Website: https://qcmhr.org/about/staff/people/dr-sean-halstead