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Preventing Suicide in Elderly Patients

Arch Intern Med. 2004;164:1171-1172.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

While suicide may seem to many to be a quintessentially individual problem resulting from intensely personal decisions to end one's life, empirical evidence over the past 2 decades has shifted this view toward one of suicide as a broader, population-based phenomenon with discernible common patterns that can be used to help define generalized risk and protective factors. Contrary to strongly held mid–20th-century views, suicide now is regarded as an important—and preventable—public health problem, one that has received increasing national and international focus during recent years.^1-4

Suicide represents a significant global disease burden. The World Health Organization has estimated that 815 000 people worldwide died by suicide in the year 2000, far outnumbering the reported 520 000 homicide deaths.⁵ Suicide occurs in the context of mental and addictive disorders, which are among the 10 leading contributors to death and disability in the world and are projected to become the leading causes of morbidity . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Eve K. Mocicki, ScD, MPH
National Institute of Mental Health
6001 Executive Blvd, Room 7167
Bethesda, MD 20892-9630

Eric D. Caine, MD
Rochester, NY

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