Suicidal Behaviour in new patients presenting to the Telepsychiatry services in a Tertiary Care centre: An exploratory Study

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to expansion of telepsychiatry services and formulation of telemedicine guidelines. However, the telemedicine guidelines are not very clear about psychiatric emergencies, such as suicidal behaviour, resulting in psychiatrists facing dilemma about handling such situations. AIM: To evaluate the prevalence of suicidal behaviour in new patients presenting to the Telepsychiatry services in a Tertiary Care centre and how patients with suicidal behaviour were handled during the initial consultation. METHODS: All new adult patients (aged >18 years) registered with telepsychiatry services during 19(th) July to 20(th) of Sept 2021 were assessed for suicidal behaviour, in the form of death wishes, suicidal ideations, plans, attempts (lifetime/recent) and non-suicidal self-injurious behaviour (NSSI) (lifetime/recent). RESULTS: The study included 1065 adult patients (aged≥18 years). In terms of suicidal behaviour, in the last few weeks prior to assessment 14.4% ofthe patients had death wishes, 2.4% had thoughts of killing themselves, 0.9% had attempted suicide in the lifetime and 0.6% in thelast few weeks, 1.1% had active suicidal ideations at the time of assessment, 0.6% had active suicidal plan, 1.3% had history of non-suicidal self-injurious behaviour (NSSI) in the lifetime and0.5% had NSSI behaviour in the last few weeks. Based on the suicidality, 1% of thepatients were asked to report to the emergency immediately, 1.4% were given an appointment within 72 hours for follow-up and 3.6% were explained high risk management. CONCLUSIONS: Suicidal behaviour, especially active suicidal ideations and suicidal plan is not very prevalent in patients seeking telepsychiatry consultation.