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Following discharge from inpatient psychiatric care, patients face a marked increase in suicide risk. In a national U.K. study of postdischarge suicide, researchers examined timing and risk factors of suicide in 238 consecutive patients (aged 16–65) who died by suicide within 3 months after discharge. Controls were 238 living former psychiatric inpatients, matched for date of discharge. The treating clinicians completed retrospective questionnaires about cases and controls.
Of the suicides, 12% occurred in the first postdischarge week, 43% in the first month, and 72% within 2 months. Nearly half of those dying in the first month had not yet attended a follow-up appointment. Risk factors for suicide included a history of self-harm, recent sui…