title: Psychiatric contacts among youths aged 13 through 24 years who have made serious suicide attempts.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To compare the history of psychiatric contacts among young people who have made medically serious suicide attempts and control subjects.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using a case-control design, the authors contrasted 129 young people who made serious suicide attempts with 153 randomly selected community controls on a series of measures of lifetime, prior year, and prior month contacts with psychiatric services.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of those who made serious suicide attempts, 78.3% had a lifetime history of contact with health services for psychiatric reasons, 72.1% reported contact within the year preceding the suicide attempt 58.9% reported contact within the month preceding the suicide attempt, and 29.5% had a lifetime history of psychiatric hospital admission. Within the year preceding the suicide attempt, 21.7% had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital and 67.4% had outpatient consultations for psychiatric problems. Multiple logistic regression suggested that the best psychiatric service predictors of risk of serious suicide attempt were admission within the preceding year (p < .005) and outpatient consultation within the preceding month (p < .0001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Young people making serious suicide attempts had vastly elevated rates of a range of psychiatric contacts including hospital admissions and outpatient consultations. These findings imply that the development of improved treatment and management strategies for young people with psychiatric morbidity may be a very effective approach to reducing youthful suicidal behaviors.
authors.affiliation: Canterbury Suicide Project, Christchurch School of Medicine, New Zealand. suicide@chmeds.ac.nz
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Beautrais
authors.forename: P R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Joyce
authors.forename: R T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Mulder
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009520:New Zealand / Q000453:epidemiology; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*