people with epilepsy: How great is the risk?
Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated for each cohort, for groups of cohorts, and for the total population. Results: The overall SMR was 3.3 (95% CI 2.8-3.7) based on 190 observed deaths by suicide compared with 58.4 expected. The SMR was significantly increased in people with incident or newly diagnosed epilepsy in the community (SMR 2.1), in populations with mixed prevalence and incidence cases (SMR 3.6), in those with prevalent epilepsy (SMR 4.8), in people in institutions (SMR 4.6), in people seen in tertiary care clinics (SMR 2.28), in people with temporal lobe epilepsy (SMR 6.6), in those following temporal lobe excision (SMR 13.9), and following other forms of epilepsy surgery (SMR 6.4). The SMR was significantly low overall in two community-based studies of people with epilepsy and developmental disability. Discussion: We confirm that the risk of suicide is increased in most populations of people with epilepsy. Psychiatric como
