Contacts of Suicide Attempters With Healthcare Services in Pecs and Bern in the WHO/Euro Multicentre Study on Parasuicide

The authors sought to determine whether differences between a public & a private healthcare system could be a possible factor influencing the help-seeking behaviour of suicide attempters, in a comparison of attempters from Pecs, Hungary & Bern, Switzerland. The authors found that while twice as many Hungarian patients visited their GP within the last week before suicide attempt & more were prescribed medication, almost half of them used these drugs for self-poisoning, compared to a quarter in Switzerland. These differences in help-seeking are explored. (28 refs)