Trends in suicide attempts at an emergency department

Abstract

Objective: To characterize the profile of suicide attempts treated at an emergency department in the municipality of Arapiraca, state of Alagoas, Brazil, from 2009 to 2012. Methods: We analyzed all emergency department records containing a diagnosis of suicide attempt. Data were evaluated using Student's t test and Pearson's chi-square test. Significance was accepted at po0.05. Results: We identified 2,142 cases. Suicide attempts were more frequent among women and young adults, but deaths were more frequent among men. Suicide attempts were most frequent among patients aged 10 to 39 years (81.1%). Drug intoxication (65.0%) and non-drug poisoning (16.2%) were significantly more prevalent than other methods of suicide. The month of April (10.6%) accounted for the greatest number of cases, and July had the smallest number (5.5%). Suicide attempts were most prevalent in spring (28.3%), on Sundays (18.4%) and Saturdays (16.8%), and from 12:00 p.m. to 5:59 p.m. Conclusion: Suicide prevention measures should focus on young women. Further research into the care provided to suicide attempters and better monitoring of the sale and use of medicines and poisons could be useful.

Perfil das Tentativas de Suicídio Atendidas em um Hospital Público de Rio Branco, Acre de 2007 a 2016

“…As for the at risk age range found in this study, it reaffirms the severity pointed out in the literature about the high rate of suicide attempts among teenagers and young adults 21,24,25,[28][29][30] , of both sex, since more than 70% of the suicide attempts occurred in people under the age of 29, although sex analysis shows some differences in the age range, with ten to 19 years having more cases among women and over 60 among men.…”

“…As for the methods, the findings in this study also confirm data from other studies, indicating the use of intoxications by medication and poisons as the most frequent in suicide attempts, especially among women 13,20,21,[25][26][27][28][29] .…”

“…This study characterized the profile of the hospitalizations for suicide attempts and found that, in the distribution of the number of records per year and sex, there was initially a predominance of the male sex, which is not in line with most of the findings in other studies, indicating that the attempts are more frequent in women [20][21][22][23][24][25] . However, after a change in the system in 2014, which made it possible to better detail the hospitalizations due to suicide attempts, the number of records of the female sex practically doubled in relation to the male sex, in line with data found in literature [20][21][22][23][24][25] . This inversion may have occurred due to the new possibility of recording hospitalizations due to suicide attempts which used less lethal methods and that were going unnoticed among records that were considered accidental, such as intoxications, falls from heights and burns.…”

Características das tentativas de suicídio atendidas pelo serviço de emergência pré-hospitalar: um estudo epidemiológico de corte transversal

“…No nordeste brasileiro, o clima da região é definido por períodos de seca e de chuva. Assim, é provável que certas atividades sociais e laborais, a exemplo do trabalho dos agricultores, tenham uma relação com as variações climáticas, podendo exercer influência sobre o comportamento suicida [28][29][30] . Os resultados de um estudo realizado na província de Shandong, China 29 , com o objetivo de examinar a sazonalidade do suicídio, evidenciaram que as variações sazonais do suicídio foram mais acentuadas nas áreas rurais, em particular pela ingestão de pesticidas 29 .…”

Suicide rates in the United States continue to rise. Are rates in Brazil underestimated?

“…The authors conclude that this pattern of results indicates that an increase in weekly average minimum temperature was acutely associated with suicide mortality in São Paulo. On the other hand, Alves et al5 showed that suicide attempts are more frequent during spring and fall in Northeast Brazil. The authors found that the highest frequencies of suicide occurred in January through April, followed by a decline and second rise from September to December; April had the highest number of cases, and July the lowest.…”