HKUMed study finds depression doubles mortality and raises suicide risk nearly tenfold
發佈日期: 2025-10-22 20:17
TVB News
The latest study led by the Faculty of Medicine of University of Hong Kong has revealed that depression doubles mortality rates -- and ratchets up suicide risks by tenfold.
But that risk can be substantially reduced with timely treatment.
HKUMed Department of Psychiatry's latest research has analysed data from 268 cohort studies across countries including the United States, China, Singapore and South Korea, covering over 10 million people living with depression and nearly 2.8 billion people in the control group.
Notably, mortality risks are the most elevated in the first 180 days after patients were diagnosed with depression.
Within this period, the risk of death is 11 times higher compared with non-depressed peers, underscoring the importance of early intervention.
Among them, suicide risks of patients under 25 years old and over 60 years old are 10 times and 13 times higher respectively.
And depression also raises the risk of death from physical illnesses.
Prof. CHANG WING-CHUNG, Chairperson, Dept. of Psychiatry, HKUMed: "They have the poor lifestyle factors, including the physical inactivity, the unhealthy diets, increased risk of smoking, alcohol and substance use and also they may not be fully aware about the consequence of the physical disease resulting in less self-care."
HKUMed makes clear that receiving antidepressant medication and neurostimulation treatments can lower mortality risks by some 20 and 30 percent respectively.
The research team also hopes that the government will introduce more policy support and allocate additional resources to increase the number of psychiatrists, facilitate early identification and intervention in the community and promote public mental health education.
