Suicide Attempts Assisted By Firefighters According to Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

Studies worldwide have reported increasing trends in suicides and attempts during the pandemic. The literature shows that improving surveillance and monitoring of suicide and attempts requires broad multisectoral prevention strategies. In Brazil, the São Paulo State Fire Department (CBPMESP) makes up the emergency response team for suicide and suicide attempted calls and public emergencies. Given this context, this paper sought to describe the characteristics of suicide attempts assisted by the CBPMESP according to traumatic brain injury (TBI), between 2018 and 2020, measured by the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). For this purpose, a descriptive study of 6,582 suicide attempts attended by CBPMESP was carried out. The factors associated with trauma brain injury according to the Glasgow Coma Scale (dependent variable) were analyzed by a multinomial regression model. Results show a significant increase of 8.0% (p = 0.039) in the number of calls responded by CBPMESP between 2018 and 2020. Men presented a higher prevalence of more violent methods for suicide attempts, namely firearms and hanging, followed by severe TBI; in women, severe TBI occurred mostly by hanging. Despite the increase in fatal suicide attempts during the pandemic, time to attend to victim acted as a protective factor for preventing severe TBI in men and women.