Life Span History of Non-fatal Suicidal Behaviours in a Large Sample of General Practitioners’ Patients: Data from Rovigo, Northern Italy

• Published in: Community mental health journal Vol. 50; no. 8; pp. 981 - 986
• Main Authors: Zanone Poma, S., Vicentini, S., Siviero, F., Grossi, A., Toniolo, E., Cocchio, S., Baldo, V., De Leo, Diego
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 01-11-2014; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Age; Age Distribution; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Antipsychotic Agents - therapeutic use; Behavioral psychology; Community and Environmental Psychology; Epidemiology; Female; Females; General Practice; Humans; Investigations; Italy - epidemiology; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mental disorders; Mental health; Mental health care; Middle Aged; Original Paper; Population; Prevalence; Primary care; Privacy; Psychiatry; Psychologists; Public health; Questionnaires; Self destructive behavior; Self-Injurious Behavior - epidemiology; Sex Distribution; Suicidal behavior; Suicidal Ideation; Suicide, Attempted - statistics & numerical data; Suicides & suicide attempts; Surgery; Surveys and Questionnaires; Young Adult; Italy; Suicide ideation; General practitioner; Non-suicidal self-injury; Suicide attempt
• ISSN: 0010-3853; 1573-2789
• DOI: 10.1007/s10597-014-9715-x

A survey about history of non-fatal suicidal behaviour was performed on 1,171 subjects in the waiting room of general practitioners’ practices in the territory of Rovigo (Northern Italy). The mean age of interviewed subjects was 52.9 ± 17.0, with a majority of female individuals. Two and two percent admitted previous experience of non-suicidal self-injury, 4.7 % admitted having had serious suicidal thoughts/plans, and 1.8 % reported at least one suicide attempt. Compared to the rest of the sample, people with history of suicidal behaviours resulted to be of younger age (
p
 < .05), whilst their level of well-being was poorer (
p
 < .001). When compared to the results of the Italian arm of the European Study of the Epidemiology of Mental Disorders, carried out on general population samples, the present study produces higher rates of suicidality, despite the much higher mean age of the interviewed subjects compared to the general population.