Retrospective Assessment of Patients over 15 Years of Age Presenting to Emergency Department with a Suicide Attempt

Aims: In this study we aimed to assess sociodemographic characteristics of cases over 15 years of age who admitted to emergency department (ED) after a suicide attempt and determine the risk factors for suicide. Methods: This study was conducted retrospectively between 01.01.2013 – 31.12.2013 at the Emergency Department of Kecioren Training and Research Hospital. Age, sex, marital status, educational status, suicide cause and method, interventions applied in emergency department, history of suicide attempts, history of psychiayric diseases, time of suicide attempt, and admission time to emergency department were examined. Categorical variables were analysed using Chi-Square test. A p value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: This study included data of 561 patients. The patients were most commonly 15 to 24 years old (46.3%) and 419 (74.7%) of them were female. Three hundred (53.5%) patients were single, 271 (48.3%) were primary school graduate, and 111 (%19.8) were active workers. The most common suicide cause was familial problems (49.9%). The most common suicide method was consuming medications in large amount (92.5%) and the most common intervention applied in emergency department was gastric lavage (26.6%). Twenty-seven (4.8%) patients had a history of suicide attempts, 371 (66.1%) patients had a previously diagnosed psychiatric illness. The highest number of attempts occurred in July (11.1%) and majority of them occurred between 18:00 and 24:00. The mean time from suicide attempt to ED admission was 2.5 hours. Conclusion: Although it is probably not possible to completely eliminate all suicide attempts, it is well possible to decrease the number of suicide attempts by reducing the number of possible risk factors for suicide