A Study of Post-Emergency Department Outpatient Treatment and Subsequent Suicide Attempts at 1- and 6-Month Follow-Ups

Abstract

Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, having severe negative impacts on families and communities. In this study, we wanted to understand whether any demographic variables or receiving any form of treatment was associated with reduced suicide attempts one month and six months after discharge from a psychiatric emergency department visit. We used chi-square to test the relationship between outpatient therapy, medication, and emergency department visits as independent variables and the presence of a suicide attempt as the dependent variable. Those with a higher severity of mental illness may be more likely to be sent to therapy and more suicidal. One way to examine the relationship between therapy and suicide attempts was to test such a question just among a sample with higher severity thereby controlling (to some extent) for severity. Making a prior suicide attempt at baseline was strongly related to attempting suicide during the follow-up. However, none of the demographic or treatment variables was significantly associated with suicide attempts across both follow-ups. Future research should test the effect of treatment adherence on suicide risk, as poor treatment adherence observed in this study may have driven the significance of our results.