@article{ref1,
title="Increased suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in COVID-19 patients in the United States: statistics from a large national insurance billing database",
journal="Psychiatry research",
year="2023",
author="Reinke, Michael and Falke, Chloe and Cohen, Ken and Anderson, David and Cullen, Kathryn R. and Nielson, Jessica L.",
volume="323",
number="",
pages="e115164-e115164",
abstract="Emerging research suggests suicidality may have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-sectional study aimed to advance understanding of suicide risk during the pandemic through novel use of a large insurance database. Using logistic regression across time-points, we estimated the effect of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 infection on rates of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in infected individuals versus uninfected controls during the pandemic (March 2020 - September 2021). In uninfected individuals, we estimated the effect of exposure to the pandemic period versus the pre-pandemic control period (January 2017 to February 2020) on suicidality rates. We also investigated within-pandemic temporal patterns of suicidality. All patients with data in the UnitedHealth Group claims during those intervals were included. ICD-10 codes defined suicidality measures. There were 525,312,717 (62.3% over age 45, 57.7% female) included encounters. From the pandemic subsample (32.8%), 1.7% were COVID+. Adjusted odds ratios showed that COVID+ patients were significantly more likely to have suicidal ideation and suicide attempts than COVID- patients. Among COVID- patients, adjusted odds of suicidality were significantly lower during versus prior to the pandemic. <br><br>RESULTS were unfortunately limited by the absence of data on deaths by suicide. Further research should examine how SARS-CoV-2 infection may influence suicidality.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0165-1781",
doi="10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115164",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115164"
}