Perfil de los intentos de suicidio en personas mayores de 65 años del area sanitaria de santiago de compostela en el periodo de 2015 a 2017

Abstract

Introduction : Elderly people have the hig- hest suicide rates in the world. In turn, they have the lowest rates of suicide attempts. This fact responds to several factors, which make suicidal behavior in the elderly a beha- vior of high lethality, committing suicide at the first attempt in a large number of cases. Objective : to know the sociodemographic and clinical profile of people over 65 years who are treated in the emergency department of the Clinical Hospital of Santiago de Com- postela for an attempted suicide. Material and methods : from January 2015 to December 2017 all people over 65 years treated by suicide attempt in the emergency service and Psychiatry Interconsultation of the Clinical Hospital of Santiago de Compos- tela were evaluated and interviewed. Diffe- rent clinical and sociodemographic variables of interest were collected. Results : 80 suicide attempts were recor- ded, which represents an incidence of 35.3 / 100,000. The average age of our sample was 74.85 ± 7 years, the ratio between male: female was 2: 3. Half of the sample was ma- rried and most lived with family. 25% had previous attempts, the majority being wo- men (p <0.01). The majority diagnosis was the Affective Disorders group and the most used method was drug overdose. The most frequent trigger or stressor was related to intrafamiliar conflict. Differences were found in the subgroups by the age of the index epi- sode above or below 65 years in terms of sex, diagnosis, and previous income. Conclusions : People over 65 who try to com- mit suicide in our area have a sociodemogra- phic profile similar to other samples from our environment. Women, with previous income in psychiatry, attempts before the age of 65, and with some diagnosis of Personality Di- sorder are a risk population to present new attempts beyond 65 years.