EVALUATION OF THE SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS IN PATIENTS WITH SUICIDE ATTEMPT ADMITTED TO AN EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

Objective: The aim of this study is to identify sociodemographic data, diagnoses, possible risks related to suicide attempts and preferred suicide methods of patients over 18 years old admitted to an emergency department with suicide attempt. Besides, we purpose to mediate the development of new methods in follow-up and treatment about suicide attempt. Methods: This study was carried out as a retrospective analyzing of the psychiatric consultations and patient files in an emergency department of a university hospital between August 2015 and July 2016. We reached the data of gender of patients, psychiatric diagnoses, preferred suicide methods, drug preferences and blood ethanol levels from the clinical records. Results: We enrolled 54 patients in the study. 42 patients were female (77.8%) and 12 patients were male (22.2%). The mean age range was 31.07 ± 11.21 years. The youngest patient was 16 years old, the oldest patient was 81. We found that 44 patients (81.5%) used self-poisoning with drugs, 8 patients (14.8%) used self-harm methods by sharp objects and 2 patients (3.7%) used self-harm methods by jumping high place. When we checked the previous psychiatric diagnosis, we detected that 37% of all study patients had a previous psychiatric diagnosis and 63% of all study patients did not have any psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. Suicide attempts have emerged after the crisis situation. Ethanol level was negative in 86.7% and positive in 13.3% of the 51 patients who had ethanol level measured during the procedure. There was no significant relationship between ethanol level and the presence or absence of the diagnosis of the patients. When the cases involving drug-related suicide were examined, 26 of the 44 patients (59.1%) were found to have completed non-psychiatric drugs and 18 pateints (40.9%) with psychiatric medications. Conclusion: Suicide attempts are more common in women and in the age range of 26-35 years. The most commonly preferred method is selfpoisoning with the drug. Proper crisis intervention and psychiatric follow-up may be the most important step in preventing future suicide