Background: Follow-up information about outcome for hospitalized mentally disordered offenders (MDO) is necessary for evaluation and improvement in quality of forensic psychiatric care.
Aim: A study was undertaken to estimate the standard mortality rate (SMR) of a population based sample of people sentenced to forensic psychiatric care.
Method: All MDOs in Orebro County, Sweden, discharged from a forensic psychiatric treatment unit between 1992 and 1999 were identified (n = 46). The variables were gender, age, offence, diagnosis and duration of admission. Case linkage was made with the National Cause-of-Death register. Median follow-up time was 53 months (0-93).
Results: The sample yielded a significantly elevated SMR 13.4 (95% CI 4.35-31.3) times higher than that in the general population, mostly due to suicide.
Conclusions: The cohort size is small but representative, and it provides data from an additional country for the growing international pool confirming the high risk of premature, generally self-inflicted death among MDOs. Resettlement and rehabilitation services for them may need to take as much account of mortality risk as that of re-offending.