Emergency Department Visits Prior to Suicide and Homicide
BACKGROUND:
Emergency
departments (EDs) serve a wide range of patients who present at risk of impending
suicide and homicide.
AIMS:
Two statewide
surveillance systems were probabilistically linked to understand who utilizes EDs
and then dies violently within 6 weeks.
METHOD:
Each identified
case was matched with four randomly selected controls on sex, race, date of birth,
resident zip code, and date of ED visit vs. date of death. Matched-pair odds ratios
were estimated by conditional logistic regression to assess differences between
cases and controls on reported diagnoses and expected payment sources.
RESULTS:
Of 1,599 suicides
and 569 homicides in the 3-year study period, 10.7% of decedents who died by suicide
(x = 13.6 days) and 8.3% who died by homicide (x
= 16.3 days) were seen in a state ED within 6 weeks prior to death. ED attendees
who died by suicide were more likely to have a diagnosis of injury/ poisoning diagnosis
or mental disorder and more likely to have Medicare. Those who died by homicide were more likely to have a diagnosis of injury/poisoning
and less likely to have commercial insurance.
CONCLUSION:
It
is essential for research to further explore risk factors for imminent suicide and homicide in ED patients who present for psychiatric conditions
and general injuries.
- 1 University of Kentucky, College of Social Work (https://socialwork.uky.edu/), Lexington, KY, USA.
- 2 University of Kentucky, Department of Biostatistics and the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center, Lexington, KY, USA.
- 3 University of Kentucky, Department of Epidemiology and Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center, College of Public Health, Lexington, KY, USA.
- 4 University of Kentucky, Department of Biostatistics, Lexington, KY, USA.
- 5 University of Kentucky , Department of Statistics/DATAQUeST, Lexington, KY, USA.
- Crisis. 2015 Dec 1:1-8.
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