Factores relacionados con la severidad de la intención suicida en pacientes de urgencias y corta estancia psiquiátricas

Abstract

Introduction

Suicide is one of the most relevant issues in psychiatry worldwide due to its great influence on social, economic and family level, and especially, due to its influence in health. There are multiple factors associated with the severity of suicidal intent, one of them is impulsivity, which is of great importance in the genesis of suicidal behavior, this being more relevant in individuals suffering from non-depressive mental disorders than in depressive disorders.

Method

A cross-sectional observational study with an analytical component was carried out, in which information was collected through a survey that consisted of six questions with multiple answer choice, two open questions and three psychometric tests: Columbia Suicide Risk Severity Assessment Scale (C-SSRS), Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS-11) and Montgomery-Asberg Depression Scale (MADRS) to subjects who meet the inclusion criteria. Subsequently, the data was processed in the SPSS version V22 software.

Results

A total of 166 participants collected from four mental health institutions were taken into account; of which 140 were adults (84.3%), 93 women (56.1%), 51 had a stable partner (30.7%), 54 with stable work (32.5%), 137 believers (67.5%), 52 with a history of sexual abuse (31.3%), 58 with substance use in a pathological pattern (34.9%), and 43 with suicidal behavior (25.9%).

The results of the psychometric tests were: the impulsivity score (BIS 11) was between 33 and 120 (mean: 78.52, SD: 11.6); the severity of suicidal intent (C-SSRS) ranged between 0 and 45 (mean: 17.9, SD: 14.7) and the depressive symptoms (MADRS) between 0 and 51 (mean: 13.6, SD: 12.2). A statistically significant relationship of the severity of suicidal intention was demonstrated with: being an adolescent, not being a believer, a history of sexual abuse and suffering from depression. Which were supported by performing the multivariate analysis where a positive relationship was evidenced between these factors and the intention of suicidal severity, however, when analyzing the variable regarding religion, no statistical significance was found in the multivariate analysis, although a positive relationship was found. No relationship was demonstrated with gender, employment status, having or not in a stable relationship, having histories of substance use in a pathological pattern, or with impulsivity.

Conclusions

The factors that were related to the severity of the suicidal intention were: within the sociodemographic variables; being a teenager and not being a believer; while in psychiatric factors it was found to have a history of sexual abuse and suffer from depression. No relationship was demonstrated with the other factors studied.