Suicide in Dementia: 9-Year National Clinical Survey in England and Wales

This study describes behavioural, clinical, & care characteristics of people with dementia who died by suicide. All 118 dementia cases from a 9-year national clinical survey of suicides in England & Wales were compared with 492 age- & gender-matched non-dementia cases by conditional logistic regression. The most common method of suicide in patients with dementia was self-poisoning, following by drowning & hanging, the latter being less frequent than in controls. In contrast to controls, significantly fewer suicides occurred within 1 year of diagnosis in patients with dementia. Patients with dementia were also less likely to have a history of self-harm, psychiatric symptoms, & previous psychiatric admissions. (36 refs.)