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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Elderly suicide attempters with depression are often diagnosed only after the attempt | | Author(s) | Kirsi Suominen, Erkki Isometsä, Jouko Lönnqvist |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 19, no 1, January 2004 |
| Pages | pp 35-40 |
| Source | http://www.interscience.wiley.com |
| Keywords | Suicide ; Depression ; Screening ; Therapeutics ; Finland. |
| Annotation | Older and younger suicide attempters treated in hospital emergency rooms in Helsinki, Finland between 15 January 1997 and 14 January 1998 were compared in terms of their health care contacts, clinical diagnoses, and characteristics predicting lack of treatment contact after the attempt. During the final 12 months before the attempt, most of the 81 older (aged 60+) suicide attempters had a contact with primary health care, but their mood disorders were likely to have remained undiagnosed before the suicide attempt. In primary health care, only 4% had been diagnosed with a mood disorder before the attempt, but 57% after. After the suicide attempt, most older suicide attempters were referred to aftercare, two-thirds having contact with psychiatric care. For the purposes of preventing suicidal behaviour, screening for depression, plus further education on recognition and treatment of mood disorders for older people in primary care settings are needed. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-040303213 A |
| Classmark | EV: ENR: 3V: LL: 76L |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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