Older Adults Less Likely Than Younger to Report Psychiatric Symptoms After Suicide Attempt

Adults aged 65 years and older who are suicidal appear to report higher levels of intent compared with younger adults who are suicidal, but they are less likely to meet the criteria for major depression and several other mental disorders. Thesefindings were published Monday in theAmerican Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.Older adults ’ lower scores on ratings of psychiatric symptoms “may cloud the clinician’s assessment of the serious nature of suicide attempts in older patients,” wrote Stefan Wiktorsson, Ph.D., of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and colleagues. “If this is the case, safety issues and treatment needs may be underestimated.”Wiktorsson and colleagues recruited patients aged 18 and older who had sought or been referred to emergency psychiatric services for self-harm at three hospitals in Sweden. Mental health staff conducted face-to-face interviews with the study participants, during which they collected information about the participants ’ physical and mental health, as well as their contact with health care professionals. The researchers used the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale to help them separate participants who had made a suicide attempt from those who did not; participants whose self-injury was determined to be nonsu icidal were excluded from the study.The researchers used the Suicide Intent Scale (SIS) to evaluate the circumstances surrounding the suicide attempt (for example, active preparation) and the Mini International Neu...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry anxiety depression older adults pain physical impairment substance use disorders suicidal intent suicide younger adults Source Type: research