Suicide Among Psychiatric Hospital Inpatients (IN: Suicide Prevention: a Holistic Approach, edited by D De Leo, A Schmidtke, & R F W Diekstra)

This chapter discusses a matched controlled study of 37 patients in an Ontario Provincial Psychiatric Hospital who committed suicide while inpatients during the period 1970-1991.The study tested a hypothesis that there would be significant differences between the inpatient suicide victims & matched inpatient controls. Significantly more of the suicide victims than controls suffered from schizophrenia, had made a previous suicide attempt, were involuntary at their last admission, & lived alone. Inpatient suicide victims with schizophrenia were also compared with controls with schizophrenia. The only significant difference between the 2 groups was that more of the suicide victims than controls had made a previous attempt. (13 refs.)