The objective of this study was to perform a comparative analysis of the temporal distribution of all cases involving adolescents between 10 and 24 years of age cared for in the psychiatric emergency unit of a large university hospital during the period from 1988 to 2004, as a result of attempted suicide or the use/abuse of psychoactive substances. Cases of attempted suicide, in particular, were studied by taking into consideration their distribution according to age, gender, and attempted method of suicide. By using case studies, data were collected in respect of the motives which triggered the suicide attempt as well as the life history of these patients which could possibly be related to the occurrence of this behavior. Data were obtained from a retrospective survey of all cases of adolescent patients who had attempted suicide and who had used/abused psychoactive substances and who attended the psychiatric emergency unit of the Clinical Hospital of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of São Paulo in Ribeirão Preto, between 1988 and 2004, and also from 10 clinical histories obtained by means of interviews with adolescent patients, selected at random, attending the unit as a result of attempted suicide. The results showed a strong positive correlation between the number of cases involving suicide attempts and the number of cases involving psychoactive substance use/abuse for both male (r=0.70; p=0.0037) and female adolescents (r=0.81; p=0.002). Suicide attempts were found to be significantly more frequent among female adolescents, where the preferred method of suicide is poisoning, using prescription drugs. The clinical histories of the cases analyzed showed that the majority of these adolescents come from broken-homes, predominantly as a result of parental separation, and that the suicide attempts were often the result of arguments with close family members. Being aware of the methodological issues, it is reasonable to suppose that the facts observed in this study would be reflected in the general population or, at least, that they indicate a serious medical-psychological problem at the welfare level among adolescents and young adults.
Adolescents; Epidemiology; Suicide attempts
