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Most managed-care protocols emphasize decreasing lengths of hospitalization, and the outpatient’s consequent wait for treatment can become lengthy. Results from this study of 13,681 men and 7488 women who committed suicide in Denmark from 1981 through 1997 (99.6% of all suicides in the country during that time) suggest that these factors might affect the risk for suicide.
Each person who committed suicide was matched with approximately 20 age- and sex-matched controls who were alive at the time of the proband's suicide. Compared with controls, patients in the first week of psychiatric hospitalization had significantly increased risks for suicide (60 times higher for men and 82 times higher for women). Patients in the week after hospital disc…