Contact with physicians prior to suicide attempt

Many countries have set programs for suicide prevention. Knowledge about behavioral patterns of suicidal persons before suicide attempt are needed for suicide prevention programs. Many studies have shown that suicide attempters had contacts with physicians before suicide attempt. Thus it is suggested that general practitioners and other specialists play a key role in suicide programs. The aim of this study was to survey contact with physicians before suicide attempt in suicide attempters in Razi hospital in Rasht. This cross-sectional study was performed on 206 suicide attempters. Clinical interviews with suicide attempters who were selected by convenience sampling were performed by two trained general practitioners. Chi-square test was used for analysis of data. 94(45.7%) of suicide attempters contacted with physicians during the month prior to suicide attempt. 65(31.6%) of them contacted general practitioners or specialists (except psychiatrists). 29 (14.1 %) of them contacted psychiatrists. General practitioners (39.4%), psychiatrists (30.8 %), internists (8.5 %) and neurologists (8.5%) had the most contacts. Significant statistical relationships were found between contact with health care system and sex (p=0.012), educational status (p=0.018), type of chronic disease (p=0.001), and history of admission in non-psychiatric hospitals (p=0.001). Also, significant relationships were found between contact with mental health system and age (p=0.017), number of previous suicide attempts (p<0.0001), history of admission in psychiatric hospital (p=0.002) and type of chronic disease (p=0.015) Among suicide attempters, contact with physicians was seen with high frequency and had significant statistical relationship with some risk factors. It is suggested that involvement of all physicians is necessary in suicide prevention programs and more works are needed to determine risk factors and persons with greater risk for suicide.