Age of first suicide attempt in men and women: an admixture analysis.
OBJECTIVE
To define different subgroups of suicide attempters according to age at onset of suicide attempts.


METHODS
Participants were 229 suicide attempters (147 females; 82 males) admitted to a general hospital in Madrid, Spain. We used admixture analysis to determine the best-fitting model for the age at onset of suicide attempts separated by sex.


RESULTS
The best fitted model for the age at onset of suicide attempts was a mixture of two gaussian distributions. Females showed an earlier age at onset of suicide attempts in both Gaussian distributions (mean ± S.D.) (26.98 ± 5.69 and 47.98 ± 14.13) than males (32.77 ± 8.11 and 61.31 ± 14.61). Early-onset female attempters were more likely to show borderline personality disorder than late-onset female attempters (OR = 11.11; 95% CI = 2.43-50.0).


CONCLUSIONS
Age at onset of suicide attempts characterizes different subpopulations of suicide attempters.
Department of Psychiatry, Fundacion Jimenez Diaz, IIS, CIBERSAM, Autonoma University, 28040 Madrid, Spain. hmblasco@yahoo.es
Hilario
H
Blasco-Fontecilla
Analucia A
AA
Alegria
David
D
Delgado-Gomez
Teresa
T
Legido-Gil
Jeronimo
J
Saiz-Ruiz
Maria A
MA
Oquendo
Enrique
E
Baca-Garcia
D000328:Adult; D017668:Age of Onset; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult