Mental illness, suicide and creativity: 40-Year prospective total population study
Section snippets
Objectives of the study
The ancient issue of genius and madness has prompted long-standing public and clinical interest. Although geniality has other components than creativity (e.g., intelligence) and is rooted in a social context, it is difficult to imagine an un-creative genius (Eysenck, 1995). Creativity consisting of both novelty and impact is thus central for geniality (Cropley, 2010).
The idea of an association between creativity and mental ill-health has mainly been upheld by occasional anecdotes or biographies
National registers
We performed a nested case–control study using longitudinal Swedish total population registers. The primary key for register linkage was the unique personal identification number assigned to each Swedish citizen. The National Patient Register (NPR, National Board of Health and Welfare) provided discharge diagnoses for all inpatient treatment episodes in Sweden 1973–2009, and partial coverage of outpatient specialist physician (other than general practitioners) treatment episodes in 2001–2009.
Results
We identified 65,589 patients (35,819 men and 29,770 women) with schizophrenia, 14,905 individuals (6145 men and 8760 women) with schizoaffective disorder, 68,915 (27,199 men and 41,716 women) with bipolar disorder, and 438,372 patients (170,781 men and 267,591 women) with unipolar depression. Further, 212,758 patients (84,087 men and 128,671 women) were diagnosed with anxiety disorders, 340,784 (246,905 men and 93,879 women) with alcohol abuse/dependence, 136,490 (80,303 men and 56,187 women)
Discussion
This Swedish total population study suggests, except for an increase in bipolar disorder, that individuals with overall creative professions are not more likely than controls to suffer from psychiatric disorders in general. Further, the results indicate a familial association with overall creative professions for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anorexia nervosa, and possibly autism. By also investigating healthy relatives of patients with psychiatric disorders, we could address the
Role of the funding source
This study was funded by the Swedish Medical Research Council (K2010-61X-21569-01-1, and K2010-61P-21568-01-4), the Swedish Psychiatry Foundation, the Bror Gadelius Foundation, the Stockholm Centre for Psychiatric Research, and the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research.
Contributors
SK contributed to the conception and design of the study, analysis and interpretation of the data, drafting of the manuscript, and critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content. ML contributed to the conception and design of the study, and critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content. MB contributed to analysis and interpretation of the data, and critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content. CH contributed to the
Conflict of interest
We declare no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
None.
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