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Suicide Attempts: How Does the Acute Use of Alcohol Affect Suicide Intent?
Author(s) -
Salles Juliette,
Tiret Bernard,
Gallini Adeline,
Gandia Peggy,
Arbus Christophe,
Mathur Anjali,
Bougon Emmanuelle
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
suicide and life‐threatening behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.544
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1943-278X
pISSN - 0363-0234
DOI - 10.1111/sltb.12586
Subject(s) - suicide prevention , injury prevention , psychiatry , poison control , medicine , human factors and ergonomics , suicide methods , affect (linguistics) , occupational safety and health , suicide attempt , clinical psychology , blood alcohol , psychology , medical emergency , communication , pathology , suicide rates
Background Very few studies have specifically addressed the role of the acute use of alcohol ( AUA ) in suicide attempts. Objective Our study compared the suicide intent scores of self‐poisoning patients with and without AUA in order to examine the role of alcohol in attempted suicides. Methods We recruited 516 patients admitted to the emergency department for self‐poisoning. We screened blood alcohol concentrations ( BAC s) to determine whether these were positive or negative in the two groups. We collected data about covariates such as psychiatric disorders and sociodemographic and suicide characteristics. We then compared suicide intent between the groups, adjusted according to the covariates. Results The patients with AUA had lower scores for suicide intent, but this factor only reduced the self‐reporting score, with the scores for objective circumstances and risk similar between the groups. There was a correlation between BAC s and self‐reported suicide intentionality, but this was not significant. Conclusion Acute use of alcohol patients presented with lower suicide intent, as particularly explained by the self‐report scores, but there were no differences between the groups in terms of risk and/or the objective circumstances. The role of alcohol in the self‐reporting of suicide attempts must be addressed in future studies.