Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T19:08:06.074Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Attempted Suicide in Oxford and Utrecht

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Martha Grootenhuis ,
Keith Hawton ,
Liesbeth Van Rooijen  and
Joan Fagg
Martha Grootenhuis
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Academisch Ziekenhuis Utrecht, The Netherlands
Keith Hawton*
Affiliation:
University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford
Liesbeth Van Rooijen
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Academisch Ziekenhuis Utrecht
Joan Fagg
Affiliation:
University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital
*
Dr K. Hawton, University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Background

Attempted suicide rates are much higher in the UK than in the Netherlands. We have compared the characteristics of suicide attempters referred to general hospitals in Oxford and Utrecht.

Method

We compared the characteristics of referrals for attempted suicide to a general hospital in Oxford and one in Utrecht, for the years 1988 and 1989.

Results

Most of the attempters in Oxford were young whereas attempters in Utrecht were older; this age difference was particularly marked in females. Utrecht attempters appeared more often to have socio-economic problems and to suffer from psychiatric and personality disorders (except substance abuse), even when account was taken of the age differences of the two populations.

Conclusions

There is some evidence for different thresholds for attempted suicide in the UK and the Netherlands, although other social explanations for the difference in attempted suicide rates are feasible and require further study.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 165 , Issue 1 , July 1994 , pp. 73 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1994 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association (1987) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd end, revised) (DSM–III–R). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.Google Scholar
Diekstra, R. F. W. (1985) Suicide and suicide attempts in the European Economic Community: an analysis of trends with special emphasis on trends among the young. Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior, 15, 27–42.Google Scholar
Grootenhuis, M. & Paap, R. P. S. C. (1993) How do suicide attempters evaluate treatment in a general hospital? Italian Journal of Suicidology, 3, 25–28.Google Scholar
Hawton, K., Gath, D. & Smith, E. (1979) Management of attempted suicide in Oxford. British Medical Journal, ii, 1040–1042.Google Scholar
Hawton, K., & Fagg, J. (1992) Trends in deliberate self poisoning and self injury in Oxford, 1976–90. British Medical Journal, 304, 1409–1411.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Platt, S., Hawton, K., Kreitman, N., et al (1988) Recent clinical and epidemiological trends in parasuicide in Edinburgh and Oxford: a tale of two cities. Psychological Medicine, 18, 405–418.Google Scholar
Platt, S., Bille-brahe, V., Kerkhof, A., et al (1992) Parasiticide in Europe: the WHO/EURO multicentre study on parasuicide. I. Introduction and preliminary analysis for 1989. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 85, 97–104.Google Scholar
Prins, M. M. & Kerkhof, A. J. F. M. (1990) Epidemiology of suicide attempts in the Leiden area, Netherlands. In Suicidal Behaviour and Risk Factors: Proceedings of Third European Symposium on Suicidal Behaviour (eds Ferrari, G., Belini, M. & Crepet, P.), pp. 195–200. Bologna: Monduzzi.Google Scholar
Sellar, C., Goldacre, M. J. & Hawton, K. (1990) Reliability of routine hospital data on poisoning as measures of deliberate self poisoning in adolescents. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 44, 313–315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
SPSS Inc. (1983) SPSSX Users' Guide. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.