A meta-analysis was done to estimate the risk of suicide in people with epilepsy. Standardized mortality ratios with 95 percent confidence intervals were calculated for each cohort, for groups of cohorts, & for the total population. The overall standardized mortality ratio was 3.3 based on 190 observed suicides compared with 58.4 expected. This ratio was significantly increased in people with incident or newly diagnosed epilepsy in the community, in populations with mixed prevalence & incidence cases, in those with prevalent epilepsy, in people in institutions, in people seen in tertiary care clinics, in people with temporal lobe epilepsy, in those following lobe excision, & following other forms of epilepsy surgery. The ratio was significantly low overall in 2 community-based studies of people with epilepsy & developmental disability. (92 refs.)JA