Abstract

Suicide and attempted suicide are among the causes of serious morbidity and mortality and are an important public health problem today. In this study, it was aimed to evaluate socio-demographic, clinical and forensic medical aspects of suicide attempters admitted to our hospital, to identify some risk factors. Thus, we emphasize the importance of suicide and drawing attention to taking measures to prevent suicides. The necessary permissions were obtained for the study. The records of 710 patients who applied to the Emergency Department of Izmir Bozyaka Training and Research Hospital between 01 January 2014 and 31 December 2015 were retrospectively reviewed. 54.9% of the patients were female and 45.1% were male. Their ages ranged from 18 to 87 years and the mean age was 32.13 ± 11.52 years. It was determined that they preferred to drink drugs most frequently (n = 665, 93.7%) and then die with firearm (n = 30, 4.2%). Four (0.6%) cases died after all interventions. There is much scientific research on suicide attempts. However, there is insufficient research on how to approach suicidal cases when emergency department workers encounter suicide attempts. In order to prevent suicide attempts and deaths which are a serious public health problem, we think that risk factors should be determined, and protective measures should be taken.

Key words: Emergency Medicine, Risk factors, Suicide, Suicide attempt.