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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Elderly suicide attempters by self-poisoning in Korea | | Author(s) | Yoo-Ra Kim, Kyoung Ho Choi, Youngmin Oh |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 23, no 6, August 2011 |
| Pages | pp 979-985 |
| Source | http://www.journals.cambridge.org/ipg |
| Keywords | Suicide ; 65-69 age group ; At risk ; Korea. |
| Annotation | The present study, based in Korea, investigated the psychosocial risk factors for suicide in older versus younger adults. Subjects included 388 patients who were admitted to the emergency room following self-poisoning. Two age groups were defined: younger patients (aged less than 65 years) and older patients (aged over 65 years). Data including demographic factors, suicidal risk factors and information about the current suicide attempt were obtained from a retrospective chart review. The number of suicide attempters over the age of 65 years old was 57, and their mean age was 73.5 years. The older patients had more underlying medical illnesses than the under 65 group. Depression was the most common psychiatric diagnosis. Psychotropics were the most commonly ingested drugs in both groups, but the use of pesticides was more notable in the over 65 group. The older suicide attempters had higher risk-rating scores and lower rescue-rating scores than the under 65 group. Male-to-female ratio of the older group was nearly 1:1 unlike the under 65 group. Older suicide attempters had different psychosocial stressors such as physical illness and more lethal suicide attempts. The study suggests the need for development of specific strategies aimed at preventing suicide in older people. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-110913011 A |
| Classmark | EV: BBE: CA3: 7DK |
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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