Citation

Detsky ME, Sivilotti MLA, Kopp A, Austin PC, Juurlink DN. J. Am. Med. Assoc. JAMA 2005; 294(15): 1900-1901.

Affiliation

Department of Medicine , University of Toronto , Toronto, Ontario .

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, American Medical Association)

DOI

10.1001/jama.294.15.1900

PMID

16234495

Abstract

The terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, caused significant medical and psychiatric morbidity, particularly in Manhattan, and acutely disrupted the lives of people around the world. However, little research has examined the effects of September 11 outside the United States. We hypothesized that the attacks influenced rates of deliberate self-harm, a complex behavioral phenomenon that includes deliberate self-poisoning. We conducted an ecological analysis of poisonings in the days immediately following September 11 in a population geographically removed from the events. We identified all hospitalizations for self-poisoning in Ontario during the month of September from 1988 to 2003 using the population-based records of the Canadian Institutes of Health Information (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes 960.0-990.0 and International Statistical Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision codes T36-T50).