Background: The aim of the present was to study the relation between organic disease and suicidal behavior.
Methods: The characteristics of 257 patients hospitalized for medical or surgical causes following attempted suicide were studied between June 1984 and June 1990 with 45 cases previously having had physical disease being compared with 212 that had not.
Results: Ninety-seven percent of the attempted suicides with organic disease fulfilled the DSM-III-R criteria for some psychiatric diagnosis with affective disorders predominating (64%). Suicides with organic illness tended to be older (p less than 0.0001), present a larger number of widowed patients (p less than 0.0001), have affective disorders (p less than 0.0001), non violent modes of suicidal behavior (p less than 0.008), and have a preference for non psychotropic drugs and barbiturates (p less than 0.007).
Conclusions: Patients with organic disease who make serious attempts to commit suicide are characterized by high psychiatric morbidity (97%) with a predominance in the diagnosis of severe depression.