Citation

Moroge S, Paul F, Milan C, Gignoux-Froment F, Henry JM, Pilard M, Marimoutou C. Encephale (1974) 2014; 40(5): 359-365.

Vernacular Title

Idées suicidaires aux urgences psychiatriques : étude prospective comparant auto- et hétéro-évaluation.

Affiliation

Centre d'épidémiologie et santé publique des armées (CESPA), GSBdD Marseille-Aubagne, BP 40026, 13568 Marseille cedex 02, France.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Masson Editeur)

DOI

10.1016/j.encep.2014.08.004

PMID

25194753

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Many suicide victims had contacts with an emergency department before their attempt. We aimed to determine whether patients coming to a psychiatric emergency department were well assessed concerning their suicidal risk, and to test an easy to fill in scale rapidly assessing suicidal risk.

METHOD: We conducted a descriptive epidemiological survey in Marseille. The source population was all patients admitted to the psychiatric emergency department. We used a booklet containing three questionnaires for "nurse", "psychiatrist" and "patient". We estimated the suicidal risk using both a visual analogue scale (similar for patients and caregivers), and validated scales on self-assessment (scale of suicidality SBQ-R and the Beck Hopelessness Scale).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The questionnaire results have shown that people who visited a psychiatric emergency department presented a significant suicidal risk on several criteria: socio-demographic criteria (social isolation, low level of education, low number of people with a job), psychiatric history (rate of pre-existing psychiatric disorders significantly higher than in the general population, high proportions of family and personal history of suicide attempts, psychiatric hospitalizations, and people with a psychiatrist). Six percent of patients claimed to have come to an emergency unit for suicidal ideas but they were ten times more with a suicidal risk, according to the SBQ-R score. The suicidal risk self-assessed by patients on our visual analogue scale was well correlated with SBQ-R scale and Beck Hopelessness scale, but was not well correlated with the evaluation of caregivers.

CONCLUSION: Hence, the analog scale we created is easy to use and seems to be a good tool for suicidal risk estimation when it is self-assessed by patients in our study population.

Language: fr