Surveillance of NON-Fatal Suicide Attempts AMONG Veterans WHO Received VHA SERVICES

Background: Comparatively little is known about the rate or characteristics of non-fatal suicide attempts. Historically, population-level systems for obtaining data on non-fatal suicide events have been limited to hospital discharge/emergency department data or self-report surveys of health and risk behaviors. The main objective of this project was to document patterns of the incidence and characteristics of non-fatal suicide events using data obtained from the Department of Veterans Affairs' Suicide Prevention Applications Network (SPAN) Methods: Data on suicide events were obtained for the fiscal years 2009-2011 and were limited to reports of suicide attempts among those with record of VA service use in the year prior or year of the reported event. Rates for non-fatal suicide events were stratified by gender and age using the total number of persons receiving VA service as the denominator for each group. Results: Between the fiscal years 2009-2011 a total of 39,661 non-fatal suicide events were reported: representing 32,219 unique attempters. Rates of non-fatal suicide events were 37% - 82% higher among females and notably higher among younger when compared to older age groups. Approximately 52% of all non-fatal suicide events were the result of an overdose and 96% of all events included a single method of attempt. Discussion: Results from this study suggest significant differences in the rate of non-fatal suicide attempts associated with age, sex, and method of attempt and highlight the need for expanded surveillance of non-fatal self directed harm.