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Journal Article

Citation

McKenzie N, Landau SF, Kapur N, Meehan J, Robinson J, Bickley H, Parsons R, Appleby L. Br. J. Psychiatry 2005; 187: 476-480.

Affiliation

Highgate Mental Health Centre, Dartmouth Park Hill, London N19 5JG, UK. n.mckenzie@ucl.ac.uk.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Royal College of Psychiatry)

DOI

10.1192/bjp.187.5.476

PMID

16260825

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Most previous investigations of imitative suicide have reported suicide clustering in the general population, either temporal clustering following media reporting of suicide or case studies of geographically localised clusters. AIMS: To determine whether space - time and space-time-method clustering occur in a national case register of those who had recent contact with mental health services and had died by suicide and to estimate the suicide imitation rate in this population. METHOD: Knox tests were used for space-time and space-time-method clustering. Model simulations were used to estimate effect size. RESULTS: Highly significant space-time and space-time-method clustering was found in a sample of 2741 people who died bysuicide over 4 yearswho hadhadrecent contact with one of 105 mental health trusts. Model simulations with an imitation rate of 10.1% (CI 4-17) reproduced the observed space-time-method clustering. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides indirect evidence that imitative suicide occurs among people with mental illnesses and may account for about 10% of suicides by current and recent patients.

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