Improving life expectancy in people with serious mental illness: should we place more emphasis on primary prevention?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Improving life expectancy in people with serious mental illness

T2 - should we place more emphasis on primary prevention?

AU - Ilyas, Athif

AU - Chesney, Edward

AU - Patel, Rashmi

PY - 2017/9/7

Y1 - 2017/9/7

N2 - People with serious mental illness have a reduced life expectancy which is partly attributable to increased cardiovascular disease. One approach to address this is regular physical health monitoring. However, physical health monitoring is poorly implemented in everyday clinical practice and there is little evidence to suggest that it improves physical health. We argue that greater emphasis should be placed on primary prevention strategies such as assertive smoking cessation, dietary and exercise interventions, and more judicious psychotropic prescribing.

AB - People with serious mental illness have a reduced life expectancy which is partly attributable to increased cardiovascular disease. One approach to address this is regular physical health monitoring. However, physical health monitoring is poorly implemented in everyday clinical practice and there is little evidence to suggest that it improves physical health. We argue that greater emphasis should be placed on primary prevention strategies such as assertive smoking cessation, dietary and exercise interventions, and more judicious psychotropic prescribing.

U2 - 10.1192/bjp.bp.117.203240

DO - 10.1192/bjp.bp.117.203240

M3 - Article

SN - 0007-1250

VL - 211

SP - 194

EP - 197

JO - British Journal of Psychiatry

JF - British Journal of Psychiatry

IS - 4

ER -