SUICIDAL IDEATION AMONG URBAN MEDICAL OUTPATIENTS

The prevalence of current suicidal ideation among urban primary care o utpatients was assessed, and suicidal and nonsuicidal patients were co mpared with regard to their demographic characteristics and their atti tudes toward mental health screening. Twenty (3.3%) patients reported having thoughts of killing themselves, The patients who had suicidal i deation were significantly younger and more frequently divorced. Almos t all (97.6%) of the patients indicated that their physicians should i nquire about emotional health issues at some time, and the suicidal pa tients were nonsignificantly more likely to recommend inquiry about ps ychiatric symptoms at every visit (55.0% vs 37.0%, p < O.11), Only hal f of the suicidal patients reported lifetime histories of mental healt h treatment. The majority (70.2%) of the patients believed that it wou ld be easy to discuss mental health problems with their medical physic ians, Among the patients who had previously received psychiatric treat ment, the suicidal patients were nearly three times more Likely to ant icipate that it would be difficult or very difficult to talk to their physicians about psychiatric problems, In contrast, among the patients who had no history of mental health treatment, there was no associati on between suicidal ideation and anticipated discomfort in talking wit h their physicians about emotional health.