Suicide Attempters Admitted To the University of Malaya Medical Center Psychiatric Unit

As part of a study of the psychiatric inpatient unit of the U of Malaya's Med Center in Kuala Lumpur, considerable data were collected on all patients admitted. A first analysis of these data revealed that 94 of the first 504 admissions were of patients who had made a suicide attempt at some time. An attempt was made to describe the suicide attempting pop & to determine from the data available which variables discriminated those patients who had made suicide attempts from all others. The Med records of all patients admitted to the unit during its first 20 months, Jun 1967-Jan 1969, were examined. Data were abstracted onto standardized scoring sheets & transcribed to computer data cards on variables related to special questions. Tabulations were prepared, & means, Md's, & standard deviations were calculated by computer. Data for the 94 admissions of patients with a history of suicide attempt were compared with data from the 410 admissions during the same period of patients with no history of suicide attempt. A highly self-selected pop used the adult inpatient psychiatry unit. As patients came largely from Ur areas close to the hosp, Chinese & Indians were markedly over-represented. A large proportion of the patients were English educated, of a somewhat higher SES, & signif'ly Westernized. Because of the stigma attached to psychiatric hosp'ization, patients rarely came to the hosp unless very ill. In many respects the data are similar to data on suicide attempters reported from other centers. However, only 5 variables diff'iated the suicide attempters from all other psychiatric inpatients: (1) Sex--the suicide attempters include a disproportionately high number of women (p less than .05). (2) Language of educ--more suicide attempters had been English educated (p less than .005). (3) Highest Sch grade completed--a disproportionate number of suicide attempters had completed some forms but not Form VI (p less than .005). (4) Diagnosis--a greater than expected number of suicide attempters were diagnosed as having a behavior disorder or neurosis (p less than .001). (5) Readmissions--suicide attempters were readmitted signif'ly more often than other psychiatric inpatients (p less than .005). Factors which it had been expected might discriminate suicide attempters from others such as age, ethnic group, religion, marital status, immigration, & occup'al status did not diff'iate the 2 groups. In the pop served by the U Hosp, a suicide attempt was a surprisingly freque