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 Overall, 23 percent of suicide victims age 50 or older shared
suicidal thoughts with another person in the month before their
death, the study found. Disclosure rates were higher among the
elderly, and more common when people had chronic health problems or
suffered from depression.
Many older adults who commit suicide without sharing their
intentions in advance may have been reluctant to discuss these
feelings because they were afraid how doctors or family members
might react, said lead study author Namkee Choi, of the University
of Texas at Austin Steve Hicks School of Social Work.
“Some older adults at risk of suicide may not want to disclose their
suicide intent if they think family members and healthcare and
social service providers may force them into inpatient treatment or
dismiss their disclosure,” Choi said by email.
“Healthcare providers, especially primary care physicians who
frequently see older adults with health problems and depression,
should routinely assess suicide risk along with access to guns and
other means of suicide,” Choi added.
For the study, Choi and colleagues examined data on 46,857 suicide
deaths among adults 50 or older in U.S. states participating in a
national reporting system from 2005 through 2014.
Overall, 10,971 people in the study had disclosed an explicit intent
to take their own lives, shared an indirect interest in doing
something to end their pain and suffering, or attempted suicide at
least once in the month before they died by suicide.
This didn’t include people who shared their plans to kill themselves
right before they did it, because this didn’t provide time to
intervene to stop the suicide, researchers note in the American
Journal of Preventive Medicine.
People who did share their intentions before committing suicide were
more likely to be older, white, married and military veterans, the
study found.
Individuals who disclosed suicidal thoughts were also more likely to
have depression and to have chronic health problems, the study also
found.
Most often, people who shared suicidal thoughts told an intimate
partner or other family member, and not a health professional.
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People were less likely to share their intentions to commit suicide
when they planned to use a gun or try to hang or suffocate
themselves than when they were considering other methods, the study
also found.
One limitation of the study is that researchers lacked data to
distinguish between verbal disclosure of suicidal thoughts and
unsuccessful suicide attempts, the authors note.
Even so, the findings highlight a need for health care providers to
discuss suicide with older adults in a way that’s sensitive and
encourages conversation, said Dr. Linda Ganzini, a psychiatry
researcher at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland who
wasn’t involved in the study.
“One myth is the idea that there are 'talkers’ and 'doers,’ that is
if people talk about suicide, they are less likely to attempt
suicide,” Ganzini said by email.
“The opposite is true,” Ganzini said. “One of the most important
warning signs for suicide attempts is talking about wanting to die.
Families should take talk of wanting to die seriously and take steps
to obtain mental health treatment.”
The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (http://www.sprc.org/states)
offers free online training in suicide prevention and links to local
resources where families may go for help, said Anthony Fulginiti, a
social work researcher at the University of Denver who wasn’t
involved in the study.
“Being able to articulate one’s pain is hard to do,” Fulginiti said
by email. “Being able to react in a way that doesn’t make a person
feel alienated is hard to do. So we have to practice if are going to
get better at it. This is likely to help shape spaces where more
disclosures happen.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2xRHlPZ American Journal of Preventive
Medicine, online October 3, 2017.
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