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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Repeated deliberate self-harm in the elderly | | Author(s) | David William Pierce |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 11, no 11, November 1996 |
| Pages | pp 983-986 |
| Keywords | Suicide. |
| Annotation | Previous studies on deliberate self-harm (DSH) in old age are reviewed, and the lack of any study on repetition in this group is pointed out. This article describes 39 patients aged over 60 (28 female, 11 male; seven multiple repeaters) presenting after repeated self-harm at a district hospital between 1973 and 1993; they comprised 1% of all DSH cases. Thirty were suffering from depressive illnesses, six showed significant cognitive impairment, while five (4 of them women) gave a history of alcohol abuse. A trend emerged for women to score higher than men on a measure of suicidal intent. Two patients committed suicide during the study period. These findings are discussed together with their implications for the management and prevention of suicidal behaviour in older people. |
| Accession Number | CPA-970421017 A |
| Classmark | EV |
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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