The future fate of suicide attempters.

Abstract

A review is made of studies of suicide attempters in which there was a personal follow‐up examination. Two studies by the author are presented: suicide attempters admitted to a psychiatric clinic and suicide attempters admitted to a traditional psychiatric hospital. The committed suicide rate among the hospital cases was three to six times higher than in the clinic cases (6.8 percent versus 1.4 to 2.8 percent). In the hospital material, 28 percent of the subjects had repeated the attempt without lethal outcome compared to 14 percent of the clinic cases. A correlation with the higher incidence of psychosis in the mental hospital cases is suggested.