Citation

Lester D. Acta Paediat. Acad. Sci. Hung. 1987; 28(3-4): 259-260.

Affiliation

Psychology Program, Richard Stockton State College, Pomona, New Jersey.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1987, Akadémiai Kiadó)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

3454210

Abstract

A psychology researcher studied the timing of suicide attempts during pregnancy of 137 self-poisonings from a hospital in Hungary. The mean age of the women was 23.8 years. The motives for the self-poisonings included attempted suicide (68.6%), overdose/mix-up or accident (21.2%), and abortion induction (8%). After the self-poisoning, 33% of the attempted suicides requested and had an abortion, as did 91% of the abortion group and 3% of the accident group. Therefore, a significant difference existed between the suicidal and accidental group in their desire to terminate the pregnancy (p.02). These data suggest that pregnant women who attempt suicide using poisons are quite likely to want an abortion. There was no difference in marital status between these 2 groups, but they were more likely to be married than the abortion group (p.01). As for the attempted suicide group, 25% tried to end their lives during the 1st trimester, 43% during the 2nd trimester, and 31% during the 3rd trimester. This distribution was similar for the accident group and both of these groups differed from the abortion group which had no self-poisonings in the 3rd trimester (1st-36%; 2nd-64%; and 3rd-0%). In conclusion, pregnant women who took poisons with the intent of committing suicide resemble the accidental overdoses in marital status and timing of the self-poisoning, but they are more likely to request an abortion.

Language: en