Suicide rate

[wolfvgang22]

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So in the last two years at my current position I've lost 2 patients to suicide I have a panel of about 1500 patients, of varying severity of illness. Is this rate of suicide typical, more than usual, or less than usual for a psychiatrist in practice?

 

[FlowRate]

From what I do know about suicide rates, it would partially depend on what your demographic mix looks like. Looks like the rate of attempts for MDD could be estimated at 1 per 10 patient years in the VA population. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20478879 Harder to find good numbers on completion from quick googling.

 

[F0nzie]

So in the last two years at my current position I've lost 2 patients to suicide I have a panel of about 1500 patients, of varying severity of illness. Is this rate of suicide typical, more than usual, or less than usual for a psychiatrist in practice?

We had 3 out of 6000 patients at our SMI clinics for 2015. Not sure what the average rate is.

That patient panel tho...

 

[nancysinatra]

I'm guessing you would need more years of data and some sophisticated demographic statistics to make any valid comparisons. Even then, death rates from psychiatric conditions can't just be tallied up in the say way as, say, death rates from lung cancer or appendicitis. Now if you came on here and said that half your patients were lost to suicide last year, then that would stand out, but what you're saying here does not sound remarkable to me.

 

[Shikima]

Sorry it has happened 🙁

 

[F0nzie]

I have not had any of my patients complete suicide yet. Lots of attempts tho. Several have died due to medical complications and substance use.

It's very difficult when your pt passes away. I frantically go through the records trying to figure out how I failed the patient. Hope you're doing ok.

 

[nexus73]

Based on discussion with other psychiatrists about completed suicides in their patients, I think what you've had is not surprising. 1500 sounds like a lot of patients.

A Psychiatrist’s Reaction to a Patient’s Suicide
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/ajp.156.10.1630

Not that you're being hard on yourself or anything, but this is a good article if anyone is interested.

 

[birchswing]

If those numbers are right, it's almost exactly 10x the national suicide rate on an entire population basis.

2/1500=
0.00133333333

2014 suicides in US: 42,773 / 2014 US population 318.9 million =
0.000134126685

So about 10x difference.

It's very sad. Interpreting this with any certainty would be folly, but presumably the population that seeks psychiatric care is one of the populations more at risk for suicide. On the other hand, they are the one populations at risk for suicide who are receiving specialized care that in part should mitigate that risk to some degree.

 

[keifernny2]

My numbers are similarly proportioned.