Citation

Kolves K, Värnik A, Tooding LM, Wasserman D. Psychiatr. Danub. 2006; 18(Suppl 1): 63.

Affiliation

Suicidology Institute, Estonian Centre of Behavioural and Health Sciences, Oie 39, 11615 Tallinn, Estonia. (kaikolves@hot.ee)

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Facultas Universitatis Studiorum Zagrabiensis - Danube Symposion of Psychiatry)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

16963956

Abstract

Aims and objectives: The study was done to estimate the proportion of alcohol abuse and dependence (AAD) among suicides and controls, and to compare the amount of AAD documented by clinicians with lifetime diagnoses applied by research protocol. Methods: Diagnosis of AAD according to DSM-IV was set up depending on medical records and/or interviews with relatives of suicidents and with controls. Ninety-one percent of suicides in Estonia (n=427/469) were pair-wise matched with controls randomly selected from GP's lists by region, gender, age and nationality. Results: Alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence were statistically significant predictors of completed suicides, while abstinence was a significant predictor for female suicides and former use for older males. AAD was diagnosed most frequently among middle-aged male suicidents, who had also the highest risk of AAD. Among suicides only 29% were given the lifetime diagnosis of AAD, and among controls 23%. Conclusions: The proportion of AAD among suicidents in Estonia was higher than found in previous psychological autopsy studies. In comparison with our previous findings on the aggregate level, the proportion of male suicides affected by alcohol was the same in the present autopsy study, while the share of female suicides with diagnosis of AAD was dramatically higher.

Language: en