PRIMARY RESEARCH Differences between subje

sa Background recognized as suffering from schizophrenia needing appro-Yamaguchi et al. Annals of General Psychiatry (2015) 14:17 DOI 10.1186/s12991-015-0055-1and previous suicide attempts are well-established riskTokyo 1878553, Japan Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleSuicide is one of the most significant causes of unexpected death among patients with schizophrenia, particularly dur-ing the early phase of the illness [1-4]. Given that 10%–28% of patients diagnosed with a first episode of psychosis have already attempted suicide prior to the first treatment [5-7] and that the risk of suicide is high even in the prodromal phase of schizophrenia [8], there is a possibility that a con-siderable number of patients commit suicide prior to being priate treatment. This suggests that the actual risk of sui-cide in schizophrenia might be higher than the estimated based on epidemiological studies. Moreover, previous studies indicate that the longer the duration of un-treated psychosis (DUP), the higher the risk of suicide-related behaviors [9-11]. Thus, there is no doubt that a clear understanding of the association between the charac-teristics of the clinical features and suicide-related behaviors in untreated schizophrenia is critical to provide necessary care to those with who are at a high risk of suicide arising from treatable symptoms. While depressed mood, low self-esteem, hopelessness