Identifying People at High Suicide Risk

Identifying people at highest risk for self-harm and preventing suicides constitute top mental health priorities. Two recent studies contribute important observations.

Goldman-Mellor and colleagues used California statewide records in 2009 through 2011 to examine mortality within a year after emergency department (ED) visits for nonfatal overdoses with opioids (n=21,080) or sedative/hypnotics (n=75,391). In the year after the index visit, all-cause mortality among people with index visits for opioid overdose or sedative/hypnotic overdose was about 3 times higher than among 500,216 reference patients with nonoverdose ED visits and was 10 and 9 times higher, respectively, than in a demographically matched general population. (Notably, the refe…