Occupational Injury Raises Long-Term Suicidality Risk, Study Finds

Occupational injury, particularly an injury which leaves workers severely harmed or results in work instability, may increase the long-term risk of suicidality, according tostudy in theJournal of Clinical Psychiatry.For the study, Wei-Shan Chin, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Taiwan, and colleagues recruited workers from Taiwan who sustained occupational injuries requiring hospitalization for three days or longer. Some 2,300 workers responded to questionnaires sent by mail at three months and 12 months after the injury; the questionnaires collected information on the workers ’ demographics, work instability, injury severity, psychological symptoms (Brief Symptom Rating Scale [BSRS-5] and the Posttraumatic Symptom Checklist [PTSC]), and suicidal ideation. Workers with a high score on the BSRS-5 or PTSC were asked to take an in-depth psychiatric evaluation administered by psychiatrists or trained nurses who used a structured clinical interview (a Chinese version of the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview [MINI]). Six years later, 1,715 of these workers completed a similar assessment.The estimated MINI-diagnosed suicidality rates were 5.4%, 4.8%, and 9.5% at three months, 12 months, and six years after occupational injury, respectively, the authors reported. At six years, participants with an injury that had a major negative impact on their physical appearance had a 1.7 times greater risk of suicida...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Brief Symptom Rating Scale Journal of Clinical Psychiatry Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview occupational injury Posttraumatic Symptom Checklist suicide Wei-Shan Chin Source Type: research