Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment (Mar 2020)
Identifying Suicidal Ideation Among Chinese Patients with Major Depressive Disorder: Evidence from a Real-World Hospital-Based Study in China
Abstract
Fenfen Ge,1,* Jingwen Jiang,2,* Yue Wang,1 Cui Yuan,1 Wei Zhang1 1Mental Health Center of West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, People’s Republic of China; 2West China Biomedical Big Data Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Wei ZhangMental Health Center of West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 18980601010Email [email protected]: A growing body of research suggests that major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most common psychiatric conditions associated with suicide ideation (SI). However, how a combination of easily accessible variables built a utility clinically model to estimate the probability of an individual patient with SI via machine learning is limited.Methods: We used the electronic medical record database from a hospital located in western China. A total of 1916 Chinese patients with MDD were included. Easily accessible data (demographic, clinical, and biological variables) were collected at admission (on the first day of admission) and were used to distinguish SI with MDD from non-SI using a machine learning algorithm (neural network).Results: The neural network algorithm distinguished 1356 out of 1916 patients translating into 70.08% accuracy (70.68% sensitivity and 67.09% specificity) and an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.76. The most relevant predictor variables in identifying SI from non-SI included free thyroxine (FT4), the total scores of Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD), vocational status, and free triiodothyronine (FT3).Conclusion: Risk for SI among patients with MDD can be identified at an individual subject level by integrating demographic, clinical, and biological variables as possible as early during hospitalization (at admission).Keywords: depression, suicide ideation, real-world, machine learning
