Violent Death and Mental Illness: a Study of a Single Catchment Area Over Eight Years

Studies 412 residents of a catchment population of a district general hospital unit who died potentially self-inflicted deaths from 1974-81. They were classified as suicide (245), accidental death (126) & undetermined (41). In each group, over 1/2 had a lifetime history of psychiatric treatment & over 1/3 were patients at the time of their death. The relative risk of violent death for those who died within a yr of their last psychiatric contact was 27x greater than those with no recent contact.