Standardized Mortality Ratio of Inpatient Suicide in a General Hospital

Inpatient suicide rates are seldom reported using age-standardized methods. This study aimed to estimate the standardized suicide rate in a general hospital. A total of 27 suicidal patients were identified by the adverse event reports during hospitalization from 1995 to 2004. Standardized suicide mortality ratios (SMR) were examined using the Poisson regression model. The SMR of inpatient suicide was 8.25 (95% CI = 5.67-12.06). Hospital suicide rates were considerably higher than the corresponding general population rates for all age groups and were particularly high in age categories of 25-29, 30-34, 40-44, and 55-59 years after controlling for sex and calendar year. Hospitalized patients had an eight times higher risk of suicide mortality than that of the general population. While the elderly are at increased risk for suicide in the general population, young- and middle-aged patients are the age group at risk for suicide mortality during hospitalization.