Suicide Attempts and Social Worker Contact: Secondary Analysis of a General Population Study

Abstract

There is a general dearth of social work studies in relation to suicide and very little is known about the characteristics of social work service users who are also suicidal. This paper is based on secondary analysis of the survey ‘Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Study in England 2007’. Results showed that (i) social work contact in the previous twelve months was significantly associated with lifetime suicide attempt; (ii) various risk and protective factors help to explain the relationship between suicide attempt and social work contact. Non-suicidal self-harm was found to be associated with suicide attempt, both with and without social work contact. Drug dependency was associated with social work contact, regardless of suicide attempt history. Other variables affected certain aspects of the relationship between social work contact and suicidality. These included age, religion, income, employment and background in local authority care. The implications for social work provision are discussed.