Suicide rate 22 years after parasuicide: cohort study

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Abstract
From May 1977 to March 1980 one of us (RH) collected demographic and clinical data on a consecutive sample of weekday ward referrals to psychiatric services after patients had an episode of parasuicide. Twenty two years later we attempted to trace the patients, using data from the Office for National Statistics. In accordance with previous studies we combined deaths that were recorded as “suicide” with deaths in which data on the death certificate suggested that the cause of death was “probable suicide.”4 Cause of death was attributed to probable suicide by two raters (GRJ and MP) independently, and there was full agreement between these two sets of ratings. Data were analysed by using the statistical software package SPSS (version 9.0). The rate of suicide during the period of follow up was calculated and then illustrated by using survival curves. We examined longitudinal associations between subsequent suicide and potential explanatory factors by using Cox regression. Hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals are presented.
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