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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Recent developments: suicide in older people | | Author(s) | Henry O'Connell, Ai-Vyrn Chin, Conal Cunningham |
| Journal title | British Medical Journal, vol 329, no 7467, 16 October 2004 |
| Pages | pp 895-899 |
| Source | http://www.bmj.com |
| Keywords | Suicide ; Literature reviews. |
| Annotation | Older people have a higher risk of completed suicide than any other age group worldwide. The authors outline the epidemiology and causal factors associated with suicidal behaviour in older people, and summarise the current measures for prevention and management of this neglected phenomenon. They do so, having searched Medline and the Cochrane database for original research and review articles. The main psychological factors for suicide in older people include psychiatric illnesses, most notably depression and certain personality traits. Physical factors include neurological illnesses and malignancies. The effects of physical health factors on suicide are generally mediated by mental health factors. Social factors include social isolation and being divorce, widowed or single. Those who have attempted suicide are at high risk of a subsequent completed suicide. This review also points to further information sources and key ongoing research such as the Dublin healthy ageing study. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-041203205 A |
| Classmark | EV: 64A * |
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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