Clinical profiles of serious suicide attempters consecutively admitted to a university-based hospital: a cluster analysis study.
OBJECTIVE
To verify the presence of different groups of medically serious suicide attempters who had more clinical or surgical seriousness and required admission to a general hospital.


METHODS
121 patients admitted consecutively were assessed. A questionnaire containing items on the patient characteristics and psychometric scales to assess the suicidal intent and lethality were used. A cluster analysis was performed using the K-means method.


RESULTS
Three groups were identified: 1) 43 subjects (mostly female) characterized by self-poisoning with medication and low suicidal intent, with highly impulsive suicide attempts; 2) 53 subjects (mostly males) who ingested pesticides and presented both moderate degrees of lethality and suicidal intent; 3) 17 subjects (predominantly males) who used more violent methods and presented high levels of lethality and suicidal intent.


CONCLUSIONS
Grouped data of these inpatients could be misleading for follow-up research purposes as our findings indicate that there are relatively distinct clinical profiles among suicide attempters admitted to a general hospital.
Rapeli
Claudemir Benedito
CB
Adolescent Division, School of Medical Science, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil. crapeli@uol.com.br
Botega
Neury José
NJ
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005260:Female; D006785:Hospitals, University; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000145:classification* / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires