title: The gap in life expectancy from preventable physical illness in psychiatric patients in Western Australia: retrospective analysis of population based registers.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine the mortality experience of psychiatric patients in Western Australia compared with the general population.
  
  
  METHODS
  Population based study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Western Australia, 1985-2005.
  
  
  METHODS
  Psychiatric patients (292,585) registered with mental health services in Western Australia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Trends in life expectancy for psychiatric patients compared with the Western Australian population and causes of excess mortality, including physical health conditions and unnatural causes of death.
  
  
  RESULTS
  When using active prevalence of disorder (contact with services in previous five years), the life expectancy gap increased from 13.5 to 15.9 years for males and from 10.4 to 12.0 years for females between 1985 and 2005. Additionally, 77.7% of excess deaths were attributed to physical health conditions, including cardiovascular disease (29.9%) and cancer (13.5%). Suicide was the cause of 13.9% of excess deaths.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Despite knowledge about excess mortality in people with mental illness, the gap in their life expectancy compared with the general population has widened since 1985. With most excess deaths being due to physical health conditions, public efforts should be directed towards improving physical health to reduce mortality in people with mental illness, in addition to ongoing efforts to prevent suicide.
authors.affiliation: Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Centre for Child Health Research, The University of Western Australia, PO Box 855 West Perth WA 6872 Australia. dlawrence@ichr.uwa.edu.au
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lawrence
authors.forename: Kirsten J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Hancock
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kisely
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002423:Cause of Death; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000401:mortality / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy / Q000639:trends*; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000401:mortality*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014904:Western Australia / Q000453:epidemiology