Analyses of Lonnqvist & Kuoppasalmi’s 1989 study on the mortality in patients with anxiety neuroses or panic disorders showed that the percentage of deaths from suicide decreased the longer the follow-up period. But analyses of Roy & Linnoila’s 1986 study on mortality in alcoholics did not show a similar result. These observations suggest that epidemiologists need to agree on critical periods & critical chronological ages for follow-up for reporting mortality from suicide. (2 refs.)