SUICIDE, ETHNICITY AND PSYCHIATRIC INPATIENT CARE - A CASE-CONTROL STUDY

This study compares patients with controls concerning sociodemographic variables and describes Swedish and foreign-born patients concerning psychiatric disorders, suicide risk, history of attempted suicide, sui cide method, number of parasuicides and time from discharge to suicide . It is based on 59 psychiatric in-patients who had committed suicide, of whom 46 were native Swedes and 13 foreign-born, and on a random sa mple of 630 controls living in the same area of Stockholm, Sweden. The re was an excess suicide risk for being foreign-born with a crude odds ratio of 1.94 (CI = 1.01 - 3.76) in an unconditional logistic regress ion. Zn the final model, single living, having a somatic disease and b eing unemployed were major risk factors for committing suicide. There were no differences between Swedes and those of foreign birth concerni ng distribution of certain background variables (i.e., suicide risk, d iagnoses and quality of care assessed via clinical records). Only 39% of the patients were classified as high risk by the doctor-in-charge a t admission. This is significantly lower (p<0.001) than the retrospect ively rated risk. Planned aftercare was considered as satisfactory for about half of the patients. About two-thirds of the patients did not participate in aftercare or almost immediately discontinued the contac t. More attention is necessary in order to motivate the patients to ta ke part in aftercare and there is a need for better co-operation betwe en hospital and out-patient clinics.