Premium
One‐year prevalence of death thoughts, suicide ideation and behaviours in an elderly population
Author(s) -
Scocco P.,
De Leo D.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.691
Subject(s) - suicidal ideation , suicide ideation , suicide prevention , epidemiology , feeling , quarter (canadian coin) , poison control , psychology , population , injury prevention , psychiatry , clinical psychology , suicide attempt , human factors and ergonomics , medicine , demography , medical emergency , social psychology , geography , environmental health , archaeology , sociology
Background Suicidality is constituted by all those phenomena that are apparently positioned along a continuum, with the two extremes represented by death wishes and completed suicide. Objectives The aim of this paper is to show the one‐year prevalence of the phenomena constituting this possible continuum in the elderly population (aged 65 years and over) of a northern Italian city and to evaluate the relationship between some of these phenomena with psychological suffering. Method Emotional feelings and suicidal thoughts have been investigated by an epidemiological survey conducted in a central quarter of that city. Data on attempted and completed suicide derived from the data bank of the Padua's WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention that monitors these phenomena since 1989. Results and Conclusions Results suggest the existence of some continuity in suicidal phenomena, where prevalence decreases from those of emotional/ideational nature to most extreme behaviour. Subjects presenting with more severe suicidal ideation were those also obtaining highest scores in a number of sub‐scales of the Brief Symptom Inventory. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.