Characterization of the suicide cases admitted to an emergency service in Turkey

Abstract

Suicide attempts are multifaceted actions originating from a wide variety of socio-demographic and clinical factors. This study aimed to characterize suicide cases presented to the emergency service of a University Hospital in Turkey. This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted by evaluating patients admitted to the emergency service. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square, and the Student’s t-test were used to compare groups. A total of 507 patients were admitted to the emergency department with a suicide attempt. Among the applicants, 383 (75.5%) were due to drug poisoning, 79 (15.6%) due to self-laceration, and 45 (8.9%) due to other reasons. Among the patients with drug self-poisoning, the most frequent intoxication was with multiple medications. Most of the patients were females, aged 26-44 years, single, unemployed, living with their family, attempted at home in weekdays, and accompanied by a family member in the emergency unit. Of the patients, 74 (14.6%) had a history of at least one previous suicide attempt. The total number of discharged patients was 438 (86.3%), while the remaining 69 (13.7%) were hospitalized, of whom 39 (56.5%) were males (p=0.004). The majority of hospitalized patients were in the 17-44-age interval. There was a significant difference between hospitalized and discharged patients concerning age groups (p=0.007). Also, a positive family history of a psychiatric disease was associated with the proportions of hospitalization (positive history: 14 (28.0%) hospitalizations vs. negative history: 55 (12.0%) hospitalizations) (p=0.002). Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that suicide attempts with drugs was significantly associated with gender and accompanying alcohol use (p