Rural-Urban Differences in Suicide Rates for Current Patients of a Public Mental Health Service in Australia

Rural versus urban rates of suicide in current patients of a large area mental health service in Australia were compared. Suicides were identified from compulsory root cause analyses of deaths, 2003-22007. Age-standardized rates of suicide were calculated for rural versus urban mental health service & compared using variance of age-standardized rates with 95% confidence intervals. There were 44 suicides; the majority (62%) were rural. Only urban patients used jumping from heights as a method of suicide. Rural patients had 2.7 times higher rates of suicide, similar to findings for rural versus urban community suicides & may reflect the underlying community rates, differences in mental health service delivery, or socioeconomic disadvantage. (40 refs.) JA