Thursday, January 28, 2016

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.

Purchase full article at:   http://goo.gl/jwE2KZ

  • 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.
  •  2015 Dec 1:1-8. 




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