Aida Kunigėlienė, Virginija Adomaitienė, Akvilė Stankevičiūtė
Abstract
Aims and objectives of the study: To analyze links between suicide attempts and subjective stressful factors. Methodology and materials: The research was carried out at the Psychiatric Clinic of Kaunas Clinics (KC) of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Hospital (LUHSH) and the Psychiatric Hospital (PH) of the National Kaunas Hospital (NKH) during the period from October 1, 2012 to October 31, 2013. The Research Permit was issued by Kaunas Regional Biomedical Research Ethics Committee (No. BE-2-37; No. P1-138/2012). The goals of the study and the principles of confidentiality and anonymity were explained to the research respondents. The respondents were comprised of patients who survived their suicide attempts and were thus hospitalized at the Psychiatric Clinic of the LUHSH or the Psychiatric Hospital of the NKH. A failed suicide attempt is defined as a conscious action chosen of one’s free will which was performed by a person who was unsure of the fatality of such action in an attempt to do selfharm or take his/her own life and which did not result in the said person’s death. The study sample was chosen based on purposeful selection. 240 adult patients complying with the sampling criteria below were surveyed. The patients were questioned only once during the research. Statistical data analysis was performed using SPSS version 19.0. Quantitative variables were defined as the arithmetic mean and standard deviation V(SN). The patient group characteristics being analyzed were expressed using concepts of statistical data location, dispersion and symmetry. Results: The study sample was chosen based on purposeful selection. 240 adult patients complying with the sampling criteria below were surveyed. The patients were questioned only once during the research. The study sample was comprised of 101 (42.1%) males and 139 (57.9%) females. The age of the respondents varied from 18 to 84 years. The research was aimed at analyzing the subjective reasons prompting the respondents to attempt suicide. The results showed that the majority of the respondents (93.3%) believed that their suicide attempt was influenced by one or several factors. It was determined that 38.8% of the patients had recently experienced and suffered through a severely stressful event. Approximately one fifth of the patients (18.8%) connected their attempted suicides with major financial problems and significant changes in living circumstances. Also, according to the subjective assessment of the respondents, their suicide attempts were prompted by divorces, a heavily ill family member, domestic violence and abuse and sexual abuse. Around 40% of the respondents failed to indicate a precise reason inducing them to commit suicide but they believed that there was such a reason. The results showed a weak yet statistically significant correlation between the frequency of psychotraumatic factors and education. It was determined that the patients with lower level of education indicated less stressogenic factors. Conclusions: Most of the suicide attempt survivors indicated that their suicide attempts were influenced by one or several subjective psychotraumatic factors. Compared to the males, the females attempted suicide by intentional self-poisoning by medications almost twice as often. The male suicide attempt survivors had higher comorbidity of mental disorders, the female more often had been diagnosed with the affective disorders.
Keyword(s): suicide attempts; subjective stressful factors; mental disorders.
DOI: 10.5200/sm-hs.2016.032
Full Text: PDF