Duration of suicide process among suicide attempters and characteristics of those providing window of opportunity for intervention

BACKGROUND: There is limited cross-cultural literature on the duration of suicide process among attempters. AIMS: The primary aim was to assess the duration of suicide process among suicide attempters attending the Crisis Intervention Clinic. We also aimed to identify the characteristics of those who reported a longer duration for this process. METHODS: In this retrospective record-based study, we collected the duration of the suicidal process from the records of all the suicide attempters evaluated over a 3-year period (n = 319). Attempters were divided into four groups based on the quartile value of the duration of the suicidal process. For analysis, the characteristics of those in the last quartile with suicide process time of >120 min (n = 75) were compared with those in the first three (n = 244). Those in the last quartile were considered to provide a window of opportunity for intervention. RESULTS: The median time for the suicidal process was 30 min (interquartile range of 5 min to 120 min). Seventy-five (23.5%) subjects belonged to the fourth quartile (duration of suicide process >120 min). A significant proportion of them came from urban areas (P = 0.011), had a diagnosis of mood disorder (P = 0.028), had visited a health professional in the recent past (P = 0.015), and had lower rates of attempt under intoxication (P = 0.005). A lesser proportion of them showed problem-focused disengagement style of coping strategy (P = 0.015). CONCLUSIONS: The suicide process time among Indian suicide attempters is short. However, a quarter of them has suicide process duration of 2 h which provides some scope for intervention. Individual and community level interventions need further evaluation for their potential efficacy in preventing the progress of the suicidal process.