title: Suicide attempters presenting at an emergency department.
abstract: Seven hundred and forty-seven consecutive cases of deliberate self-injury presenting at the Emergency Department of an inner city hospital were rated on Beck's Medical Lethality Scales, the Intent Scale and Poldinger's Risk Scale. In addition, demographic data were collected on each patient. The results pertaining to the demographic characteristics of the subjects were found to be similar to those reported elsewhere. However, although the overall intent scores were not found to be predictive of the lethality of the method employed, the "objective" circumstances surrounding the attempt were found to be highly related to the risk factor assigned to each patient. The recommendation is made that specific sub-groups of attempters need to be identified and may warrant specialized intervention strategies.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000416:Alberta; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D008875:Middle Aged; D012306:Risk; D012737:Sex Factors; D012917:Social Adjustment; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014887:Weather