A six year follow-up study of repetition of suicide attempts in suicide attempters after discharge

Objective To investigate the repetition of suicide attempts in suicide attempters after discharge and to analyze the relative factors.Methods One hundred fifteen in-patients who had attempted suicide were evaluated at 18 months,3,5 and 6 years after discharge.Results Twenty one patients had subsequent suicidal behaviors within 6 years.Among them,5 had completed suicides(4.3%) and 16 had attempted suicides(13.9%).There were significant difference in age,mental illness and prior suicide attempts between patients with and without subsequent suicidal behaviors(P0.05).Binary logistic regression showed that repeat suicide behaviors were associated with prior suicide attempts(P0.01,OR=10.21,β=2.32).The total follow-up years of 115 suicide attempters were 723.55 person year.Based on the total follow-up years,we calculated that the completed suicide rate,attempted suicide rate and suicide behavior rate were 0.7%,2.2% and 2.9% per year.Conclusions Suicide attempters are at high risk of repetition.The patients with prior suicide attempts and mental illness are more susceptible to subsequent suicide behavior.