Following an attempted suicide by drowning in a vat of mineral oil, a previously fit man survived the usually fatal lipoid pneumonia resulting from total immersion after intensive support and prolonged steroid therapy with recovery of chest radiography and pulmonary function at one year.

BACKGROUND Suicide and non-fatal suicidal behaviour are significant public health issues in Europe requiring effective preventive interventions. However, the evidence for effective preventive strategies is scarce. The protocol of a European research project to develop an optimized evidence based program for suicide prevention is presented. METHOD The groundwork for this research has been esta...

The life-threatening risk for drug addicts is the accidental/unexpected overdose (in Germany mostly caused by opiates). The problem of drug addiction, which encompasses all aspects of the individual's life, is accompanied by the additional negative reinforcement of the permanent danger of a sudden fatal outcome. The causes for an accidental fatal intoxication originate from the different qualit...

The present study examines the association between repetition of suicide attempts and sociodemographic and psychopathological characteristics of patients during a 5-year follow-up period. Participants were 874 suicide attempters referred to the University Hospital of Ghent, among whom 361 (41.3%) patients were available for follow-up analysis. Within 5 years, 29.2% of those admitted for an inde...

Sodium azide poisoning is rare (~50 case reports) but can be quickly fatal. A systematic review reported the fatal dose in humans to be over 10 mg/kg1. A 69 year-old female was admitted to our hospital for voluntary sodium azide poisoning. She ingested a massive dose of a soup spoon (15 g) of pure sodium azide powder with intention to commit suicide without any co-intoxication. Within minutes...

OBJECTIVES To examine the incidence of suicides due to co-proxamol compared with tricyclic antidepressants and paracetamol, and to compare fatality rates for self poisonings with these drugs. DESIGN Analysis of routinely collected national and local data on suicides and self poisonings. SETTING Records of suicides in England and Wales 1997-9; non-fatal self poisonings in Oxford District 199...

BACKGROUND Diabetes mellitus may have profound effects on physical and emotional health and quality of life. OBJECTIVE The authors evaluated the perceived quality of life and its association with suicide risk in Italian patients with diabetes mellitus. METHOD Authors evaluated 100 patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Patients completed the Beck Hopelessness Scale, the Suicide Score Sca...

BACKGROUND Overdose (OD) is a common cause of death in opioid users. Also, many current opioid users report a history of non-fatal OD. The present study aimed to identify factors associated with a history of non-fatal OD. METHODS A sample of 7085 Swedish criminal justice clients with alcohol or drug misuse was assessed, using the Addiction Severity Index. Subjects reporting use of opioids dur...