title: Suicide deaths and nonfatal hospital admissions for deliberate self-harm in the United States. Temporality by day of week and month of year.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  No one knows whether the temporality of nonfatal deliberate self-harm in the United States mirrors the temporality of suicide deaths.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To analyze day- and month-specific variation in population rates for suicide fatalities and, separately, for hospital admissions for nonfatal deliberate self-harm.
  
  
  METHODS
  For 12 states, we extracted vital statistics data on all suicides (n = 11,429) and hospital discharge data on all nonfatal deliberate self-harm admissions (n = 60,870) occurring in 1997. We used multinomial logistic regression to analyze the significance of day-to-day and month-to-month variations in the occurrence of suicides and nonfatal deliberate self-harm admissions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Both fatal and nonfatal events had a 6%-10% excess occurrence on Monday and Tuesday and were 5%-13% less likely to occur on Saturdays (p < .05). Males were more likely than females to act on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Nonfatal admission rates were 6% above the average in April and May (p < .05). In contrast, suicide rates were 6% above the average in February and March and 8% below it in November (p < .05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Suicides and nonfatal hospital admissions for deliberate self-harm have peaks and troughs on the same days in the United States. In contrast, the monthly patterns for these fatal and nonfatal events are not congruent.
authors.affiliation: Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, 11720 Beltsville Drive, Calverton, MD 20705, USA. miller@pire.org
authors.forename: Ted R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: C Debra
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Furr-Holden
authors.forename: Bruce A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Lawrence
authors.forename: Harold B
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Weiss
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D010507:Periodicity; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013405:Suicide / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014798:Vital Statistics