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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Deliberate self-harm in older people revisited | | Author(s) | H C Lamprecht, S Pakrasi, A Gash |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 20, no 11, November 2005 |
| Pages | pp 1090-1096 |
| Source | http://www.interscience.wiley.com |
| Keywords | Suicide ; Mental disorder ; Accident & emergency depts ; Consultation ; General practitioners ; Psychiatric treatment ; Longitudinal surveys ; North East England. |
| Annotation | This was a retrospective observational study which reviewed 97 episodes of deliberate self-harm (DSH) involving 82 patients aged 65+ referred to the Liaison Psychiatric Service of the Tees and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust South locality from 2000 to 2002. There was a year-on-year increase in the number of older people presenting with DSH, especially in men. 21% of the older men had no discernible psychiatric diagnosis. There was a small number of people who repeated DSH within a year. Males were as likely to be repeaters as females. 23% of al patients saw a general practitioner (GP) in the seven days before the episode of DSH, and this increased to 58% in the 4 weeks preceding the episode of DSH. More males (56%) than females (26%) who presented with DSH were married. The most common method of DSH was medication overdose (93%) of which 66% used prescribed medication. DSH in older people may start to mirror some of the characteristics seen in younger adults with DSH; and while numbers are small compared to younger adults, the observations suggest an increase in DSH in men. Marriage may no longer be a protective factor in prevention of DSH in older men. Longer term observational studies of DSH in older people are required to confirm these changing patterns. GPs may have an important role to play in prevention of DSH in later life. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060106211 A |
| Classmark | EV: E: LD6: LK6: QT6: LP: 3J: 82NE |
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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