Lack of Association betweenToxocaraExposure and Suicide Attempts in Psychiatric Patients

Abstract

Infection withToxocaramay affect the central nervous system. A high seroprevalence ofToxocarainfection has been reported in psychiatric patients. To the best of our knowledge, there is no previous report about an association ofToxocarainfection with suicide attempts. Therefore, we sought to determine whetherToxocaraexposure is associated with suicide attempts in psychiatric patients. We studied 282 psychiatric outpatients (156 with suicide attempts and 126 without suicide attempts). Sera of patients were analyzed for the presence of anti-ToxocaraIgG antibodies by using a commercially available enzyme immunoassay. One of the 156 (0.6%) suicide attempters and 1 (0.8%) of the 126 controls were positive for anti-ToxocaraIgG antibodies (OR = 0.80; 95% CI: 0.04–13.02;P=1.00).Toxocaraseropositivity was significantly higher (P=0.01) in male patients with consumption of raw dried goat meat than male patients without this consumption. Results suggest thatToxocaraexposure is not associated with suicide attempts in psychiatric outpatients in Durango City, Mexico. However, further studies with larger samples sizes to confirm our results should be conducted. Too few patients were seropositive to assess further associations ofToxocaraexposure with sociodemographic, clinical, and behavioral characteristics of the psychiatric patients.