Factors associated with choice of high lethality methods in suicide attempters: a cross-sectional study.
BACKGROUND
Most attempted suicides have a low lethality, but hanging, drowning, and jumping from a great height have a high risk of completed suicide. The aim of this study was to assess the sociodemographic profiles of patients who attempted suicide using high lethality methods relative to all other methods of attempted suicide.


METHODS
We retrospectively investigated all attempted suicides treated at a tertiary university hospital in Seoul between January 2008 and February 2012. The following variables were considered: the patients' attempted suicide methods, age, sex, history of attempted suicides, previous psychiatric history, occupation, and living conditions. The suicide methods were categorized into two groups: high lethality (e.g., hanging, falling, and drowning) and low lethality methods (e.g., self-poisoning and cutting). We investigated risk factors related to the choice of high lethality methods.


RESULTS
A total of 560 patients were enrolled in this study. Deliberate self-poisoning was the most common method of attempted suicide (61.6%), followed by cutting (22.5%), hanging (10.4%), falling (4.1%), and drowning (1.4%). In logistic regression analyses, odds ratios for the choice of high lethality methods were 1.02 (95% CI = 1.01 to 1.03, p < .01), 7.22 (95% CI = 3.06 to 17.04, P < .01), and 0.59 (95% CI = 0.35 to 0.99, p = .04) for age, previous attempted suicide with a high lethality method, and alcohol co-ingestion, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings indicated that age and past attempted suicide using a high lethality method are associated with the use of high lethality methods for attempting suicide.
Department of Emergency Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, 222 Banpo-daero, Seocho-Gu, Seoul, 137-701 Republic of Korea.
Sang Hoon
SH
Oh
Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Kyoung Uk
KU
Lee
Department of Emergency Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, 222 Banpo-daero, Seocho-Gu, Seoul, 137-701 Republic of Korea.
Soo Hyun
SH
Kim
Department of Emergency Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, 222 Banpo-daero, Seocho-Gu, Seoul, 137-701 Republic of Korea.
Kyu Nam
KN
Park
Department of Emergency Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, 222 Banpo-daero, Seocho-Gu, Seoul, 137-701 Republic of Korea.
Young Min
YM
Kim
Department of Emergency Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, 222 Banpo-daero, Seocho-Gu, Seoul, 137-701 Republic of Korea.
Han Joon
HJ
Kim
Attempted suicide; Methods; Poisoning