Citation

Ho Choi K, Wang SM, Yeon B, Suh SY, Oh Y, Lee HK, Kweon YS, Tai Lee C, Lee KU. Psychiatry Res. 2013; 210(3): 957-961.

Affiliation

Department of Emergency Medicine, Uijeongbu St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Republic of Korea.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.psychres.2013.09.026

PMID

24207008

Abstract

This study compared demographical and clinical variables between first and multiple suicide attempters and investigated risk and protective factors predicting multiple attempts. 228 patients visiting emergency department after attempting suicide were divided into two groups: first attempter (n=148, 64.9%) and multiple attempter (n=80, 35.1%). Demographic variables, clinical characteristics, factors related with suicide behavior, and psychiatric resources between two groups were compared. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate risk and protective factors predicting multiple attempts. The results showed that multiple attempters were younger, not married, more severe in psychopathology (e.g., psychiatric disorder, personality disorder, lower function, and suicide family history) and suicidality (e.g., repetitive/severe/continuous suicide ideation), and lower in psychiatric resources (e.g., interpersonal stress/conflict, conflicting interpersonal relationship, socially isolated, lower personal achievement, and lower ability to control emotion) than first attempters. Suicide ideation severity and conflicting interpersonal relationships predicted multiple suicide attempts, whereas past year's highest global functioning score and age over 45 protected against multiple suicide attempts. This study demonstrated that multiple suicide attempters have more severe clinical profile than first suicide attempters. Moreover, decreasing severity of suicide ideation, improving interpersonal relationships, and enhancing functioning level of suicide attempters might be important in preventing them from re-attempting suicide.

Language: en