Sunday, September 24, 2023
This activity is intended for psychiatrists, mental health professionals, primary care physicians, and registered nurses.
The goal of this activity is to provide an understanding of the important issues of concern to men over age 50, including the risk factors for depression in this age group.
On completion of this continuing medical education offering,
participants will be able to:
Medical Education Collaborative, a nonprofit education organization, is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
Medical Education Collaborative designates this educational activity for a maximum of 1 hour in Category 1 credit towards the AMA Physician's Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity.
Provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider Number CEP-12990 for 1.2 contact hours.
Florida BN Provider Number: FBN-2773
For questions regarding the content of this activity, contact the accredited provider for this CME/CE activity noted above. For technical assistance, contact [email protected]
There are no fees for participating in or receiving credit for this
online educational activity. For information on applicability and
acceptance of continuing education credit for this activity, please
consult your professional licensing board.
This activity is designed to be completed within the time
designated on the title page; physicians should claim only those
credits that reflect the time actually spent in the activity. To
successfully earn credit, participants must complete the activity
online during the valid credit period that is noted on the title page.
Follow these steps to earn CME/CE credit:
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Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, resulting in over 30,000 deaths per year.[41] This is clearly an underestimate of the true figure since many suicides are not recorded as such because of social stigma, financial considerations, and other factors. For as long as statistics about suicide have been collected in the United States there has been a very consistent strong association between suicide and 3 factors: age, gender, and race. Though women have many more suicide attempts than men,[42] per attempt, a man is 4 times more likely to die than a woman[41]; in fact, white males accounted for 73% of all suicides in the US in 1996.[43]
From 1970 to 1998, US annual suicide rates per 100,000 rose from 16.2 to 18.7 in men, but decreased from 6.8 to 4.5 in women.[42,44] In 1998, the rate of suicide in white men was 20.3/100,000 and in nonwhite men was 10.5/100,000; in male youths aged 15-24 years, these rates were 19.3 for whites and 15.6 for nonwhites (Table 3).[42] Among the US elderly (aged ≥ 65 years), 1998 suicide rates among elderly women were similar to those among women of all ages (4.7/100,000), but rates increased significantly for elderly men (from 18.7 to 34.1/100,000). When categorized by race, these rates of suicide among elderly white men substantially increase (from 20.3 to 36.6/100,000) and increase moderately in nonwhite elderly men (from10.5 to 13.7/100,000).[42] According to 1997 data from the National Institute of Mental Health, the highest rate of suicide is among white men older than age 85 (65/100,000).[45]
All Ages
Elderly
(65+ y)
Youth
(15-24 y)
Group
No. Suicides
Rate/100,000
Rate/100,000
Rate/100,000
Nation
30,575
11.3
16.9
11.1
Men
24,538
18.6
34.1
18.5
Women
6037
4.4
4.7
3.3
Whites
27,648
12.4
18.1
11.6
Nonwhites
2927
6.2
6.9
9.2
Blacks
1977
5.7
5.3
8.6
White Men
22,174
20.3
36.6
19.3
White Women
5474
4.8
5.0
3.5
Nonwhite Men
2364
10.5
13.7
15.6
Nonwhite Women
563
2.3
2.4
2.7
Black Men
1659
10.2
11.6
15.0
Black Women
318
1.8
1.2
2.2
Adapted from American Association of Suicidology. U.S.A. Suicide: 1998 Official Final Data. Available at: http://www.suicidology.org/index.html.[42]
There is a well-established strong association between depression and suicide. About 90% of suicides result from treatable mental disorders, most commonly depression or substance abuse disorder ."[47] Despite very effective treatments for depression, there has not been a significant reduction in the suicide rate in the United States, specifically no dramatic reduction in the rate of suicide in men over age 60. The argument that doctors do not have the opportunity to treat patients who commit suicide is not supported by the data. Among people who commit suicide, 20% have seen a physician on the day of the suicide, 40% have seen a physician within 1week and 70% have seen a physician within 1 month.[48] Physicians may not be routinely evaluating suicide potential at each office visit for the high-risk population of older men.
