Assessment of Suicidal Cases Among Emergency Department Applicants Dumlupınar University Kütahya Evliya Çelebi Training and Research Hospital Experience

Background:
By sharing our experience in suicide cases, which constitute a significant part of the psychiatric emergency cases in our work, we hope to attract attention to the factors involved in suicide attempts. This is intended to contribute to taking precautions and prevent suicide attempts by determining the possible risk factors.
Method:
This study was conducted by retrospectively reviewing records of 292 cases filed with Dumlupınar University Kütahya Education Research Hospital Emergency Service as suicide attempts between January 01 and December 31, 2016, for which the “Suicide Attempt Registration Form” was completed.
Results:
Suicide attempts were found to occur more frequently in females in the age group of 15–24 years, particularly in cases with familial problems, psychiatric diseases, and problems with the opposite sex.
Conclusions:
In this study, we evaluated demographic and risk factors of suicide attempts in our hospital. Local government, non-governmental organizations, and health service providers need to cooperate for the development of policies to prevent suicidal behavior. In addition, because psychiatric diseases take an important place in the etiology of suicide attempts, it is vital that these patients are followed up closely and that symptoms indicative of suicide are treated and an absolute psychiatric evaluation and follow-up are done before discharge of the emergency patients.