Analysis On 58 Completed Suicides Aged 15 To 35 By Psychological Autopsy Method

Objective: To investigate characteristics of young suicides aged15～35 years old in rural Hunan as a first step in the development ofrelevant prevention strategies.Methods: Using the psychological autopsy method and taking anaverage of 2～3 hours, we independently interviewed family members andassociates of 58 completed suicides from 5 counties of Hunan Provinceselected by random between June 1, 2005 and December 31, 2006. Weassessed the characteristics of suicidal behavior, suicide intent, GlobalAssessment of Functioning, life events, social support, hopelessness,impulsion, trait anxiety and depression level of suicides. After that,experienced psychiatrists made the psychiatry diagnosis by DSM-ⅣAxisⅠcriteria with the details collected from the interview.Results: Total 58 completed suicides had the followingcharacteristics: 76% died by ingesting poisons (in most cases the poisonwas stores in the home); 46% had a mental disorder at the time of death(most commonly depression); 38% had a serious physical disease; 21%made a prior suicide attempt; 19% committed suicide in the presence ofsomeone else; and 60% had experienced serious negative life events. Thethree most common negative life events in the past one year were acute orserious physical illness (38%), love failure (26%) and conflict withfamily members (24%). 56% suicides with mental disorder had neversought health services. Social support, impulsiveness and the GlobalAssessment of Functioning (GAF) of these suicides with mental disorderwere lower than the suicides without mental disorder, and negative lifeevents, history of attempted suicide, the lever of anxiety, hopelessnessand depression of the cases with mental disorder was higher than thecases without mental disorder. By Spearman correlation analysis, therewas significant correlation between the 6 factors of the GlobalAssessment of Functioning (GAF), life events, social support, traitanxiety, hopelessness and depression.Conclusions: The majority of suicide cases aged 15 to 35 in the fivecounties of rural Hunan died by ingesting pesticides. Nearly a half of 58 suicides had a mental disorder at the time of death. And most suicides hadexperienced serious negative life events in the past one year.