Ten years psychosocial outcomes among adolescents following suicide attempts – early recurrence and psychosocial outcomes

A suicide attempt (SA) is a major risk factor of recurrent SA in adolescence and may be associated with psychological or social problems in the future. REPEATERS is a longitudinal study which examines the long-term psychosocial outcome of adolescents following attempted suicide. It focuses on the impact of early recurrence (i.e., within the first year of the index SA) – data which is, in fact, poorly documented. Ten years after the index SA, a self-reporting questionnaire was sent to all adolescents who had attempted suicide and were followed up by the CHRU (Regional University Hospital Centre) de Nancy, France, between 1994 and 2003 and their parents. The purpose of this questionnaire was to assess psychosocial outcomes. Data concerning SA were collected retrospectively. After ten years, 146 of the 309 adolescents who had attempted suicide and were participating in the study had responded: 90% lived with a partner and 41% had children. The mean (SD) current emotional life of suicide attempt survivors scored 7.3 (2.3) on a scale of 0 to 10. Compared to the general population of the same age, responders felt more depressed than their peers (29% vs. less than 8% of males and 20% of females), had more suicidal thoughts (14% vs. 5%), and had more SAs (27% vs. 0.3%). Moreover, the risk of recurrence over the ten year period was associated with suicide recurrence in the first year after the index SA (odds ratio [OR]=2.3; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.1–4.9) and with a lower level of education at ten years (OR=0.37; 95% CI=0.19–0.45). Although a favorable outcome was reported ten years after the event for the majority of adolescents who had attempted suicide, some with a lower level of education were nevertheless at increased risk of recurrence and depression. Post-intervention strategies are therefore essential in order to evaluate risk factors which may persist if not taken into consideration. À l’adolescence comme à l’âge adulte, réaliser une tentative de suicide est un facteur de risque majeur de nouveau passage à l’acte suicidaire. En dehors du crescendo de suicidalité et de la banalisation progressive des actes lorsqu’ils se répètent, les patients qui « récidivent » ont-ils un devenir différent de ceux pour qui la tentative de suicide sera unique? REPEATERS est une étude longitudinale qui décrit le devenir psychosocial d’adolescents qui ont fait une tentative de suicide, en prenant en compte l’impact de la récidive suicidaire « précoce », c’est-à-dire, dan