Population-based study of medically treated self-inflicted injuries

Abstract

Objective:Self-inflicted injury is commonly seen in emergency departments (EDs). It may be a precursor to death by suicide. The objective of this study was to examine the epidemiology of self-inflicted injury presentations to EDs in the province of Alberta.Methods:Self-inflicted injury records for the 3 fiscal years 1998/99 to 2000/01 were accessed from the Ambulatory Care Classification System, a database that captures all ED encounters in the province of Alberta. Available data for each case included demographic details, location and time of visit, diagnoses and procedures.Results:There were 22 396 self-inflicted injury presentations to Alberta EDs during the study period. Self-inflicted injury rates were higher in females, younger patients, those on social services and those with Aboriginal treaty status. There were higher rates of return visits in the year following the self-inflicted injury than in other patient groups. Data showed regional variation. Trends could be seen in the timing of self-inflicted injury presentations by hour of day, day of week, and month of year.Conclusions:Self-inflicted injury is common, with particularly high rates demonstrated among marginalized populations. This study provides comprehensive data on those who present with self-inflicted injuries, and can be used to guide further treatment, research and evaluation for this population.

Adolescent depression and emergency department use: The roles of suicidality and deliberate self-harm

“…For example, 12.4% of emergency department presentations identifying depression as the primary diagnosis (by International Classification of Disease [ICD] coding) also list deliberate self-harm [19]. Accordingly, extending the definition of a deliberate self-harm presentation to include this overlap suggests that they account for closer to 0.7% of US emergency department presentations annually [19], with overall annual presentation rates closer to 200 per 100,000 people and peaking at more than 500 per 100,000 among those aged 15 to 19 years [20]. Although the markedly higher rates of deliberate selfharm presentations among those aged 15 to 19 years imply that they may account for a larger proportion of the total emergency department use in this age group as compared with the overall estimate, definitive data are not available.…”

Air pollution and daily emergency department visits for depression

“…Emergency departments (ED) often encounter patients with depression who present with life threatening illness or injury, including suicidal behaviour [7]. These are important health care encounters which consume considerable health care resources, so efforts to elucidate the causes of these presentations are warranted.…”

Comparison of cluster detection using patients and events of medically treated self-inflicted injuries in Alberta, Canada

“…These treaties entitle comprehensive health care for any member of the First Nation that signed the treaty and while this approach may not include all Aboriginal Albertans, the proxy measure has been used previously and is valid. This population has higher rates of self-inflicted injury than the general population of Alberta (Colman et al 2004c). Our population is defined as the n • = 100,254 Alberta individuals with ''Treaty'' status whose age was less than 65 years.…”

“…The population and case data sets were part of a larger research data set fully described in Colman et al (2004c). Pediatric case (Rosychuk et al 2006b) and event (Rosychuk et al 2006a) clustering have previously been examined for all Albertans.…”