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Repetition of Parasiticide: An Epidemiological and Clinical Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Norman Kreitman  and
Patricia Casey
Norman Kreitman*
Affiliation:
MRC Unit for Epidemiological Studies in Psychiatry, University Department of Psychiatry, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Morningside Park, Edinburgh EH10 5HF
Patricia Casey
Affiliation:
Royal Edinburgh Hospital, currently Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, University College Cork, Ireland
*
∗Currently Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University College Cork, Ireland
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Abstract

The dramatic clinical presentation of parasuicide tends to deflect attention from the repetitive pattern of this behaviour in many patients. In an epidemiological study of annual cohorts of parasuicides for 1972, 1977, and 1982 admitted to the Regional Poisoning Treatment Centre, Edinburgh, it was found that for certain subgroups of the population ‘repeaters' were actually commoner than ‘first-ever’ patients, and a number of risk factors were identified, of which social class was particularly important. The clinical characteristics of patients distinguished by their frequency of repetition were also described, with special attention to the stability of these differentiating features over time. It is suggested that the habitual repeater requires closer study, and that the factors which lead to initiation into a parasuicidal ‘career’ are not necessarily those which conduce to repetition.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 153 , Issue 6 , December 1988 , pp. 792 - 800
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1988 

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