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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Psychiatric disorders are common among individuals treated for deliberate self-harm (DSH) in somatic hospitals. However, few large-scale studies have explicitly addressed psychiatric disorders among adult DSH patients.
AIM: To examine the presence of psychiatric disorders among adults presenting to somatic hospitals following DSH, and further to establish clinical and sociodemographic determinants of being diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder in this patient population.
METHOD: Data from several national registers were interlinked to identify all individuals aged 18 and older presenting to somatic hospital for DSH during the period 2008-2018. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between psychiatric disorders (ICD-10) and clinical and sociodemographic characteristics of the DSH patients.
RESULTS: Altogether 39,534 subjects with 63,622 episodes of DSH were included in the study with a gender ratio (F:M) of 1.48. The majority were unmarried and had low income and education. Psychiatric disorders were present in 58.5 % of all episodes and in 54.3 % of the index episodes. Affective disorders displayed the highest prevalence (18.3 %), followed by alcohol use disorder (16.4 %). Personality disorders were highly prevalent among young females with multiple DSH episodes. Middle-aged individuals had the highest prevalence of psychiatric disorders. Presence of psychiatric disorders was significantly associated with DSH repetition. LIMITATIONS: Data was restricted to variables available in the registers.
CONCLUSIONS: Psychiatric disorders were common among DSH patients in the present cohort, but distributed differently between the genders. DSH repetition and middle-age was associated with being diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.
Language: en |