Hospital characteristics associated with post-discharge suicide of severely depressed patients.
OBJECTIVE
To explore risk factors, such as characteristics of psychiatrist, patient and hospital at index hospitalization, associated with depressed patients who committed suicide within 3 months of discharge using a case-control design.


METHODS
By linking the Taiwanese nationwide mortality database and the National Health Insurance dataset, all hospitalized patients with major depression who committed suicide within a 90-day period post-discharge during the years 2002-2004 were selected as a study cohort (n=85). We randomly selected 425 cases (five for every case in the study cohort) that were matched with the study cohort in terms of age, gender and date of discharge as a control cohort. Cox proportional hazard regression was carried out to compute the adjusted 90-day survival rate after adjusting for other factors.


RESULTS
The majority of suicide occurred 30 days after discharge from hospitals, with a mean of 29.9 days. The adjusted hazard for committing suicide after hospital discharge for patients who left on their own initiative was 2.85 times (95% CI=1.387-5.856, p=0.004) greater than for those who were discharged with doctors' approval. Furthermore, the adjusted hazard for patients who were discharged from medical centers was higher than for patients discharged from regional hospitals, by a multiple of 3.38 (95% CI=1.421-8.055, p=0.006).


CONCLUSIONS
Some patient-specific predictors of post-discharge suicide, such as suicidal ideation prior to admission, recent life events and social relationships with close relatives were not available.


CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that, in addition to patient characteristics, hospital characteristics also constitute important risk factors for suicide within 90 days of discharge for depressed patients.
Lin
Herng-Ching
HC
School of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wu-Hsing St., Taipei 110, Taiwan.
Lee
Hsin-Chien
HC
Kuo
Nai-Wen
NW
Chu
Chien-Heng
CH
D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003710:Demography; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006767:Hospitals, District / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010351:Patient Discharge / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*