RICH people with a history of mental illness are likelier to commit suicide than their poor counterparts, according to a study published in Saturday’s weekly British Medical Journal (BMJ). Researchers at Denmark’s University of Aarhus, exploring the link between social position and psychiatric disorder, trawled through national health archives from 1982 to 1994. The lower the income, the likelier a person with mental problems would seek hospital treatment, which in turn helped to prevent suicide, they found. “People with a history of mental illness and a high income are at greater risk of committing suicide than their lower-income counterparts,” they write. “Richer people with a mental disorder may be more suicidal before they are admitted to hospital or they may feel more stigmatised, vulnerable and shameful about having a mental illness.”