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Suicide within 12 months of mental health service contact in different age and diagnostic groups

National clinical survey

Centre for Suicide Prevention, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

REBECCA PARSONS, BA

Centre for Suicide Prevention, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Correspondence: Professor Louis Appleby, Centre for Suicide Prevention, University of Manchester, Williamson Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. E-mail: Louis.appleby{at}manchester.ac.uk

Declaration of interest L.A. is the National Director of Mental Health for England. Funding detailed in Acknowledgements.

See pp. 129–134 and 143–147, this issue.

Background Suicide prevention is a health service priority but the most effective approaches to prevention may differ between different patient groups.

Aims To describe social and clinical characteristics in cases of suicide from different age and diagnostic groups.

Method A national clinical survey of a 4-year (1996–2000) sample of cases of suicide in England and Wales where there had been recent (<1 year) contact with mental health services (n=4859).

Results Deaths of young patients were characterised by jumping from a height or in front of a vehicle, schizophrenia, personality disorder, unemployment and substance misuse. In older patients, drowning, depression, living alone, physical illness, recent bereavement and suicide pacts were more common. People with schizophrenia were often in-patients and died by violent means. About a third of people with depressive disorder died within a year of illness onset. Those with substance dependence or personality disorder had high rates of disengagement from services.

Conclusions Prevention measures likely to benefit young people include targeting schizophrenia, dual diagnosis and loss of service contact; those aimed at depression, isolation and physical ill-health should have more effect on elderly people.

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Highlights of this issue

KIMBERLIE DEAN
BJP 2006 188: 105-a5. [Full Text]  

Suicide in mental health in-patients and within 3 months of discharge: National clinical survey

JANET MEEHAN, NAVNEET KAPUR, ISABELLE M. HUNT, PAULINE TURNBULL, JO ROBINSON, HARRIET BICKLEY, REBECCA PARSONS, SANDRA FLYNN, JAMES BURNS, TIM AMOS, JENNY SHAW, and LOUIS APPLEBY
BJP 2006 188: 129-134. [Abstract] [Full Text]  

PETER TYRER
BJP 2006 188: 198. [Full Text]  

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