Majority Of Suicides Research Articles

A study of suicide autopsies 1957--1977.

A study of 1862 postmortem examinations of suicides carried out in north west London over a 20 year period from 1957–1977 to assess and compare significant mental and physical disease present in differing age groups. Twenty per cent of autopsies revealed significant physical disease, the majority of suicides being a relatively younger, physically healthy group.

Clinical identification of suicidal risk.

Prediction of suicide is beyond our present competence, but groups of persons with an increased risk of suicide may be identified. Because suicide is an infrequent event, a heavy preponderance of false-positives (persons not truly suicidal), who share the characteristics of high-risk persons, may overwhelm the detection system. Clinical diagnoses of affective disorder (depressive illness) and alcoholism, found in the majority of suicides, carry implications of greatly increased risk of suicide, especially under certain circumstances. It is argued that the problem of false-positives, which is relevant to demographic predictors, is irrelevant in these cases because such persons should receive psychiatric treatment in any event. If successful, such treatment should prevent some suicides.