Biomaterial Database

[Death after earlier deliberate self-poisoning. A 10-year material from an intensive care unit]. 1993

N J Fisker, and P K Andersen

Anaestesiologisk-intensiv afdeling V, Odense Sygehus.

In order to describe the survival after deliberate self-poisoning we followed up all patients discharged from an intensive care unit over a ten year period (1979-1988), where admission had been due to deliberate self-poisoning. The acute lethality has been described in a previous publication. Among 1487 patients discharged from the intensive care unit a total of 227 deaths were registered (median observation time: 55 months). According to national lifetables the expected number of deaths was 32. The deaths were classified as natural (44%), suicide (39%), accidental (9%) or other (8%). Among patients who committed suicide there were some significant (p < 0.01) characteristics: the majority of the patients were under 50 years of age, with an observation time of under two years and a history of prior psychiatric illness. The suicide rate was 1.3% per year of observation. We conclude that survivors of deliberate self-poisoning will remain at high risk of dying (especially suicide) in the future, and that useful clinical predictors of fatal outcome have yet to be determined.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D007362	Intensive Care Units	Hospital units providing continuous surveillance and care to acutely ill patients.	ICU Intensive Care Units,Intensive Care Unit,Unit, Intensive Care
D008297	Male		Males
D008875	Middle Aged	An adult aged 45 - 64 years.	Middle Age
D010359	Patient Readmission	Subsequent admissions of a patient to a hospital or other health care institution for treatment.	Hospital Readmission,Rehospitalization,Unplanned Hospital Readmissions,Unplanned Readmission,30 Day Readmission,Hospital Readmissions,Readmission, Hospital,Readmissions, Hospital,Thirty Day Readmission,30 Day Readmissions,Hospital Readmission, Unplanned,Hospital Readmissions, Unplanned,Readmission, Patient,Readmission, Thirty Day,Readmission, Unplanned,Rehospitalizations,Thirty Day Readmissions,Unplanned Hospital Readmission,Unplanned Readmissions
D011041	Poisoning	A condition or physical state produced by the ingestion, injection, inhalation of or exposure to a deleterious agent.	Poisonings
D011446	Prospective Studies	Observation of a population for a sufficient number of persons over a sufficient number of years to generate incidence or mortality rates subsequent to the selection of the study group.	Prospective Study,Studies, Prospective,Study, Prospective
D002423	Cause of Death	Factors which produce cessation of all vital bodily functions. They can be analyzed from an epidemiologic viewpoint.	Causes of Death,Death Cause,Death Causes
D003718	Denmark	A country in northern Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. The capital is Copenhagen.	Faeroe Islands,Faroe Islands
D005260	Female		Females
D005500	Follow-Up Studies	Studies in which individuals or populations are followed to assess the outcome of exposures, procedures, or effects of a characteristic, e.g., occurrence of disease.	Followup Studies,Follow Up Studies,Follow-Up Study,Followup Study,Studies, Follow-Up,Studies, Followup,Study, Follow-Up,Study, Followup