@article{ref1,
title="Predictors of attempted suicide among swiss patients with alcohol-use disorders",
journal="Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs",
year="2009",
author="Buri, Caroline and von Bonin, Beatrice and Strik, Werner and Moggi, F.",
volume="70",
number="5",
pages="668-674",
abstract="OBJECTIVE: Suicide attempts are common in patients being treated for alcohol-use disorders (AUDs). However, clinical assessment of suicide risk is difficult. In this Swiss multisite study, we propose a decision tree to facilitate identification of profiles of AUD patients at high risk for suicidal behavior. METHOD: In this retrospective study, we used a sample of 700 patients (243 female), attending 1 of 12 treatment programs for AUDs in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Sixty-nine patients who reported a suicide attempt in the 3 months before the index treatment were compared using risk factors with 631 patients without a suicide attempt. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were used to identify patients at risk of having had a suicide attempt in the previous 3 months. RESULTS: Consistent with previous empirical findings in AUD patients, a prior history of attempted suicide and severe symptoms of depression and aggression considerably increased the risk of a suicide attempt and, in combination, raised the likelihood of a prior suicide attempt to 52%. In addition, one third of AUD patients who had a history of suicide attempts and previous inpatient psychiatric treatment, or who were male and had previous inpatient psychiatric treatment, also reported a suicide attempt. CONCLUSIONS: The empirically supported decision tree helps to identify profiles of suicidal AUD patients in Switzerland and supplements clinicians' judgments in making triage decisions for suicide management.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1937-1888",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}