Investigating psychiatric morbidity, hopelessness and suicide risk in patients with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome: a case-control study

Background: The psychiatric phenotype of the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) has been largely described.

Objectives: With a case-control study design, we now compared a sample of 22q11DS patients with a psychiatric diagnosis with a sample of psychiatric patients without 22q11DS to investigate possible differences between groups for depression severity, hopelessness, and suicide. Patients with 22q11DS were divided into two groups according to the levels of hopelessness to evaluate the relationship between hopelessness and the severity of the 22q11DS, the level of disability, functional impairment, physical frailty, and autonomy level.

Results: Results showed that suicide risk evaluated with the C-SSRS was similar in the two groups of patients and that a diagnosis of 22q11DS does not appear to be a risk factor for suicide; however, 22q11DS patients had more severe hopelessness. Patients with a more severe clinical presentation and worse overall functioning have higher levels of depressive symptoms and hopelessness.

Conclusions: The results suggest the need to assess and monitor psychiatric symptoms in patients with 22q11DS.