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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Psychogeriatric inpatient suicides in Australia | | Author(s) | Ajit Shah, T Ganesvaran |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 12, no 1, January 1997 |
| Pages | pp 15-19 |
| Keywords | Suicide ; Psychogeriatric patients ; Depression ; Alcoholism ; Australia. |
| Annotation | Psychiatric inpatients have a higher suicide rate than the general population. Psychogeriatric inpatient suicides in a large psychiatric hospital in Melbourne were examined over a 21 year period. Only 8% of all inpatient suicides were by those aged over 60 years. Psychogeriatric inpatient suicides, when compared to younger inpatient suicides were more likely to have depression, less likely to have schizophrenia, have more children and have a longer interval between the age of onset of the illness and the index admission. These associations were probably a function of age. Psychogeriatric inpatient suicides, when compared with psychogeriatric 'alive' patients, were associated with depression, alcohol misuse and pre-admission and intra-admission suicidal ideation. A high index of suspicion and vigilance among staff for elderly patients with these features is suggested. |
| Accession Number | CPA-970807201 A |
| Classmark | EV: LF:E: ENR: ETA: 7YA |
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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