14 DAY TRIAL // Reports indicated that emergency departments should do a little more than usual for patients at risk of suicide. A small study published online in Emergency Medicine Journal, said that many suicide patients use emergency services in the year leading up to their death.
According to statistics, in England and Wales, more than 5000 people commit suicide every year. Researchers analyzed emergency department records for 286 that killed themselves between 2003 and 2005, from 38 hospitals. These patients were in contact with mental health services in the 12 months preceding their death and the suicides were identified from the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness data.
Suicidal patients were aged 19 to 95 and the average age of the suicides was 47, with twice as many men as women. Data showed that more than 4 out of 10 people (43% of 124), of all 286 suicides, received treatment at emergency care departments at least once in their last year of life. 35 of these (28%), had been in emergency care facilities more than three times in the year leading up to their death.
Also, “frequent attenders” dies soon after their last visit to emergency care, mush earlier than those who attended more seldom. More than half (55%) of the suicidal patients were unemployed or on long term sick leave and one in five cases was diagnosed with schizophrenia or depression. 48% had affective disorders, 9% were addicted to alcohol and 3% to drugs.
Also, “frequent attenders” had more chances of having a history of self-harming and alcohol improper disinfection. Most of them were unemployed and already had more or less help for psychological reasons, self-harming included, relates e! Science News.
The authors concluded: “Although psychiatric services clearly have a prominent role in preventing suicide in mental health patients, emergency care departments may represent an important additional setting for suicide prevention.”
“Frequent attenders may represent a high risk group, and this should be recognized by emergency services.”