Factors associated with choice of high lethality methods in suicide attempters: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Most attempted suicides have a low lethality, but hanging, drowning, and jumping from a great height have a high risk of completed suicide. The aim of this study was to assess the sociodemographic profiles of patients who attempted suicide using high lethality methods relative to all other methods of attempted suicide. METHODS: We retrospectively investigated all attempted suicides treated at a tertiary university hospital in Seoul between January 2008 and February 2012. The following variables were considered: the patients’ attempted suicide methods, age, sex, history of attempted suicides, previous psychiatric history, occupation, and living conditions. The suicide methods were categorized into two groups: high lethality (e.g., hanging, falling, and drowning) and low lethality methods (e.g., self-poisoning and cutting). We investigated risk factors related to the choice of high lethality methods. RESULTS: A total of 560 patients were enrolled in this study. Deliberate self-poisoning was the most common method of attempted suicide (61.6%), followed by cutting (22.5%), hanging (10.4%), falling (4.1%), and drowning (1.4%). In logistic regression analyses, odds ratios for the choice of high lethality methods were 1.02 (95% CI = 1.01 to 1.03, p < .01), 7.22 (95% CI = 3.06 to 17.04, P < .01), and 0.59 (95% CI = 0.35 to 0.99, p = .04) for age, previous attempted suicide with a high lethality method, and alcohol co-ingestion, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicated that age and past attempted suicide using a high lethality method are associated with the use of high lethality methods for attempting suicide.