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The high risk for suicide after discharge from a psychiatric hospitalization is well-known. To clarify the nature of the risk, investigators examined 6 years of U.S. Medicaid and National Death Index records on 770,643 patients (mean age, 35) with a first hospitalization, lasting ≤30 days, for a psychiatric disorder. The comparison group was a random sample of 10% of 1,090,551 demographically matched patients hospitalized with a nonpsychiatric diagnosis for the same duration.
The cumulative probability of suicide in the first 3 months after discharge was 40 to 58 times higher in psychiatric patients than in nonpsychiatric patients. In adjusted analyses, suicide rates were:
178/100,000 person-years in patients with any psychiatric disorder
235/…