The British Journal of Psychiatry (2006) 189: 278-279. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.105.018671
© 2006 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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SHORT REPORTS

Physical vulnerability and fatal self-harm in the elderly

Michael Eddleston

South Asian Clinical Toxicology Research Collaboration, Centre for Tropical Medicine, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford, UK and Ox - Col Collaboration, Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka

Mathisha Dissanayake and M. H. Rezvi Sheriff

Ox - Col Collaboration, Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka

David A. Warrell

Centre for Tropical Medicine, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford

David Gunnell

Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, UK

Correspondence: Dr M. Eddleston, SPIB, Royal Infirmary, Little France Crescent, Edinburgh EH16 4SA, UK. Email: eddlestonm{at}eureka.lk

Declaration of interest None.

Funding detailed in Acknowledgements.

Although the high rate of suicide in elderly people is conventionally explained as being due to greater intent to die, we have noted elderly Sri Lankans dying after relatively mild poisoning. Using data from cases of yellow oleander poisoning, we investigated the effect of age on outcome in 1697 patients, controlling for gender and amount ingested. In fully adjusted models, people over 64 years old were13.8 (95% CI 3.6-53.0) times more likely to die than those less than 25 years old. The high number of suicides in elderly people globally is likely to be due, in part, to the difficulty they face in surviving the effects of both the poisoning and its treatment.


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