Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #117880

Lynne Fullerton-Gleason, PhD¹, Jonathon LaValley, BS², and G. Thomas Shires, MD¹. (1) Trauma Institute, University of Nevada School of Medicine, 2040 W. Charleston Blvd, Suite 501, Las Vegas, NV 89102, 702-523-7911, lfullerton@salud.unm.edu, (2) Department of Emergency Medicine, University of New Mexico, MSC10 5560, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001

Introduction: Characteristics of hospital admissions provide evidence that may have clinical implications in suicide prevention. We sought to characterize hospital patients who later die from suicide.

Methods: Nevada vital statistics and hospital discharge datasets for 1996-2000 were linked. A dataset was created comprising individuals who died from suicide and had at least one prior hospital admission. Admitting diagnosis and chief complaint ICD9 codes were hand reviewed; information was used to code admissions into various diagnostic groups of interest including injury, mental illness, etc.

Results: Among 466 hospital patients who later died from suicide, admitting diagnosis differed by age and sex. Among young, female patients (< 25 years; n=8), five (62.2%) had admissions for conditions related to pregnancy, three (37.8%) for poisoning, and one for a mental illness. Among 19 young males, prior admissions were for head trauma (31.6%), mental health complaints (21.0%), poison (15.8%) and other injuries (26.3%).

There were 25 females age 65 years and older in our sample. Nearly all had visits for serious illnesses in these categories: cardiac (32%), gastro-intestinal (44%), and respiratory (24%). Similarly, among 118 senior males in the sample, visits were primarily for serious illnesses: cardiac (31.4%), gastro-intestinal (21.2%), respiratory (30.5%), and vascular (16.1%).

Patterns related to hospital admissions among adults age 35-44 years were difficult to characterize.

Conclusions: Most suicide decedents do not have a prior hospital admission for injury. For this reason review of both injury and non-injury visits are essential to identify relationships between hospital admission characteristics and later suicide death.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation, listeners will be able to

• understand the utility of linking databases reporting fatal and nonfatal outcomes; and;
• identify characteristics of hospital admissions that correlate with later suicide death among male and female patients.

Keywords: Suicide, ICD

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.