Suicide during clozapine treatment: A case report

The risk of suicide among patients with schizophrenia is greater than that in the general population. Although clozapine, along with its other signifi cant features, has been reported to decrease suicidality and suicide rate a mong schizophrenia patients, physicians should remain vigilant for general risk factors of suicide in patients with schizophrenia during a treatment c ourse and assess them carefully. Awareness of the effect of the illness, a sense of inadequacy to achieve goals, a change in the course of the illness , an improvement after relapse and a proposed discharge from the hospital i n the near future are factors that should be noted especially within these general risk factors for suicide. In this case report, we presented a schiz ophrenia patient with several risk factors who committed suicide during clo zapine treatment. Risk factors prominent in this case including increased a wareness after improvement in chronic state, planned discharge in the near future, and the notion of reduced suicidality in schizophrenia patients dur ing clozapine treatment are discussed in this article based on the literatu re and the case.