Ba. Anderson et al., CHARACTERISTICS OF SUBSTANCE-ABUSING VETERANS ATTEMPTING SUICIDE - A NATIONAL STUDY, Psychological reports, 77(3), 1995, pp. 1231-1242
Demographic, diagnostic, and service utilization characteristics of ve
terans diagnosed with suicide attempt, substance dependence, both, or
neither at discharge from Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) hospita
ls in fiscal year 1994 (FY94) were compared using the DVA's discharge
abstract database. Four groups of veterans were studied: (1) substance
-abusing suicidal inpatients (n=1,459), (2) substance-abusing nonsuici
dal inpatients (n=123,808), (3) nonsubstance-abusing suicidal inpatien
ts (n=632), and (4) nonsubstance-abusing nonsuicidal inpatients (n=402
,906). Substance-abusing suicidal veterans had higher rates of substan
ce abuse than substance-abusing nonsuicidal veterans and mere more psy
chiatrically disordered than nonsubstance-abusing suicidal veterans. S
ubstance-abusing suicidal veterans had a higher mean number of inpatie
nt treatment episodes and a larger proportion of discharges against me
dical advice than the other three inpatient groups. Psychiatric and su
bstance use disorders are more prevalent among substance-abusing suici
dal veterans than among veterans with only substance use disorders or
suicidal conduct.