ABSTRACT
Aim: The purpose of this study is to determine the clinical and demographical features of recurrent youth suicide and identity possible risk factors.
Material and Methods: In this study all patients admitted to our pediatric emergency department with adolescent suicide attempts, from the dates of January 2011 and September 2014, were analyzed with the goal to identify the risk factors for reoccurring suicide and clinical outcomes retrospectively.
Results: This study included 417 adolescents, 81 men and 336 women with an average age of 15.55±1.86 years. The most common zodiac sign of the patients was Capricorn (48 patients) and Aquarius (44 patients). According to the lunar cycle, 39 (9.4%) attempted suicide during full moon and 34 (8.2%) during the new moon cycle. It has been established that most suicide attempts occurred while being alone (80.2%) and inside the house (90.6%) and the most preferred method is combined drug ingestion (51.0%). The recurrent suicide attempt rate is 13.2%. While determining that attempting the suicide alone is a significant factor in recurrent suicide psychotropic drug intake was found to have a protective effect. The most diagnosed psychiatric disorder in cases of recurrent suicide and first time suicide attempts was depression (49.1% and 8.6% respectively).
Conclusion: Triggering risk factors such as lunar cycle or zodiac sign do not have an effect on recurrent suicide attempts. A wide participation in clinical studies is necessary to determine the real effect of these risk factors.
Manuscripts that are Published Ahead of Print have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication by the Editorial Board of the West Indian Medical Journal. They may appear in their original format and may not be copy edited or formatted in the style guide of this Journal. While accepted manuscripts are not yet assigned a volume, issue or page numbers, they can be cited using the DOI and date of e-publication. See our Instructions for Authors on how to properly cite manuscripts at this stage. The contents of the manuscript may change before it is published in its final form. Manuscripts in this section will be removed once they have been issued to a volume and issue, but will still retain the DOI and date of e-publication.
Our 7 faculties and 12 professional schools offer more than 200 programmes to some 18,000 graduate, undergraduate and continuing studies students.
The UWI, Mona ranks first in Jamaica among accredited tertiary-level programmes. In 2012, the University was again one of Jamaica’s Top 100 Employers.
