Self-harm is a major risk factor for suicide (Gunnell & Frankel, 1994) with around a quarter of suicides preceded by non-fatal self-harm in the previous year (Owens & House, 1994). Strategies for suicide prevention should include accurate monitoring of health service contacts due to selfharm. Unfortunately, the published literature points to few practical steps for ensuring this accuracy.We off...

BACKGROUND The literature on the association between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and fatal and non-fatal intentional self-harm (ISH) among Veterans who receive care within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is limited in scope and contradictory. The current study examines the association between PTSD and non-fatal ISH in a gender-stratified sample of patients who received care at...

BACKGROUND The Isle of Man is a UK crown dependency able to operate a category 1 shipping register, permitting its marine administration to register vessels of unlimited size and tonnage. Little is known about work related mortality among seafarers who are employed in Isle of Man registered shipping. OBJECTIVES To establish the causes and circumstances of all work related deaths among seafare...

Suicide guns: why collect this information? Firearm suicide is a worldwide problem. The majority of firearm deaths in many countries are suicides (including and the United States). 1 2 In the United States, over half of suicides are committed with firearms. 1 2 However, we know much more about the characteristics of suicide victims than we do about the firearms that they use. Although often ove...

Both assert power over death (Dein & Littlewood, 2000). Individual murderers may seek the death penalty for themselves by committing suicide or attempting fatal self-harm; one in three murders is followed by suicide, and the majority of suicides of murderers occur within hours of the act of killing (West, 1965). Some murderers may also die in acts of simultaneous murder and suicide. Historicall...

Injury-associated deaths have substantial economic consequences in the United States. The total estimated lifetime medical and work-loss costs associated with fatal injuries in 2013 were $214 billion (1). In 2014, unintentional injury, suicide, and homicide (the fourth, tenth, and seventeenth leading causes of death, respectively) accounted for 194,635 deaths in the United States (2). In 2014, ...

Prospective studies of the serotonergic system and suicide report that low 5-hydroxyindolacetic acid (5-HIAA) in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and a history of attempted suicide predict suicide risk. Low CSF homovanillic acid (HVA) is reported to be associated with past and future lethality of suicide attempts but not with suicide. The interrelationships between monoamine metabolites, violent m...

The recent paper by Gunnell et al 1 and the accompanying editorial by Pitman & Caine 2 clearly outline the practice and principles of a contemporary approach to suicide prevention in mental health settings. However, I do not think the policy initiative that every patient with a serious mental illness or a recent episode of self-harm should be followed up within a week of discharge is really a h...

Samenvatting Het aantal niet-fatale suïcidepogingen dat jaarlijks in Nederland plaatsvindt is niet bekend, en ook over de samenstelling van groep mensen die een suïcidepoging overleeft weten we weinig. Binnen het project ‘Registratie suïcidepogingen’ worden bestaande data uit uiteenlopende bronnen (bijvoorbeeld spoedeisendehulpposten, Nationale Politie) bijeengebracht om te komen tot landelijk ...

background: lidocaine is a local anesthetic and antiarrhythmic agent. there are reports on accidental and intentional cases of poisoning following injection of lidocaine while rare are the fatal cases realized after oral ingestion of lidocaine. suicidal poisoning with lidocaine pharmaceutical formulations is rare since no pharmaceutical dosage forms for oral use are available except gels and sp...