Perfil psicossocial dos pacientes suicidas atendidos na emergência de um hospital escola

Abstract

Introduction: Suicide is self-infringed intentional death. The prevalence of suicidal rates varies from culture to culture and from time to time in the same culture. A growing tendency for female, adolescent and young adult has been observed. The current study attempts to describe the psychosocial profile of 40 patients attended in HB-FAMERP Hospital casualty due to suicide attempts. Method: A combination of measures was used while patients were in hospital. The Attempting Suicide Questionnaire, the Hamilton Depression Scale (Ham-D), the Beck Scale for Suicidal Intention (BSI), Two-question Questionnaire and the Goldberg Scale for Depression. Results: Results demonstrated that the male proportion was 37,5% and the female proportion was 62,5%. Self-poisoning was the most used method (95%): 50,3% by psychotropic drugs and 27,7% by pesticides. The average score for male and female was 9,86 (BSI) and 18,8 (Ham-D), and 15 (BSI) and 28,36 (Ham-D), respectively. Patients who had no history of previous suicide attempts were 52,5%. Affective Disorders with depressive episode were identified as diagnostic hypothesis in 87,5% of sample, in which 54,3% was considered grave, 25,7% considered moderate, and 20% tenuous. Family income was lower than 3 minimum wages for 73,5% and per capita family income was up to a minimum salary for 87,5% of the total. Conclusions: Patients are mainly young women, people from working class and with low intent. Self-poisoning is the commonest method. Affective Disorder is the usual diagnosis and most patients presented depression symptoms.