Role of alcohol use in suicidal behavior in public places

Abstract

Introduction

Suicide in public places is a relatively common emergency in which alcohol use could be a factor involved.

Methods

A total of 169 patients were attended for SB in Madrid public places by SAMUR (Municipal assistance service for emergency and rescue) and transferred to FJD emergency room where all of them were assessed by the psychiatrist on duty. For all (but 47 of them), blood alcohol level was measured and other variables were collected: age, sex, history of suicide attempt and characteristic of the attempt. A descriptive analysis was made and then differences between those using alcohol and those not was made.

Results

Our sample comprises 169 patients, 40.2% woman and 59.8% man (median age = 39.36 years). Alcohol was measured in 122 patients, being positive in 52.4% (median alcohol level = 95.09 mg/dL). We found that 64.6% of man had consumed alcohol against the 30.2% of women (P = 0.000). 64.8% of alcohol users were discharged, against the 35.2% that not users. We admitted 28.1% of the alcohol users and 56.8% of the non-users (P = 0.007). We did not found statistically significance differences when compared patients that consumed against patients who did not regarding previous attempts, behavior (ideation, intent, non suicidal self-harm) and method.

Conclusions

When assessed SB, we found that most of the patients were man under the alcohol influence and most of them were discharged after being evaluated. The data does not reflect the seriousness of the SB, which opens the possibility of correlating the levels of alcohol with suicidal risk.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.