PSYCHIATRIC CONTACTS AMONG YOUTHS AGED 13-YEARS THROUGH 24-YEARS WHO HAVE MADE SERIOUS SUICIDE ATTEMPTS

Objective: To compare the history of psychiatric contacts among young people who have made medically serious suicide attempts and control su bjects. Method: Using a case-control design, the authors contrasted 12 9 young people who made serious suicide attempts with 153 randomly sel ected community controls on a series of measures of lifetime, prior ye ar, and prior month contacts with psychiatric services. Results: Of th ose who made serious suicide attempts, 78.3% had a lifetime history of contact with health services for psychiatric reasons, 72.1% reported contact within the year preceding the suicide attempt, 58.9% reported contact within the month preceding the suicide attempt, and 29.5% had a lifetime history of psychiatric hospital admission. Within the year preceding the suicide attempt, 21.7% had been admitted to a psychiatri c hospital and 67.4% had outpatient consultations for psychiatric prob lems. Multiple logistic regression suggested that the best psychiatric service predictors of risk of serious suicide attempt were admission within the preceding year (p < .005) and outpatient consultation withi n the preceding month (p < .0001). Conclusions: Young people making se rious suicide attempts had vastly elevated rates of a range of psychia tric contacts including hospital admissions and outpatient, consultati ons. These findings imply that the development of improved treatment a nd management strategies for young people with psychiatric morbidity m ay be a very effective approach to reducing youthful suicidal behavior s.