- Title
- Hospital-treated deliberate self-poisoning in the older adult: identifying specific clinical assessment needs
- Creator
- Jackson, Mariann; McGill, Katie; Lewin, Terry J.; Bryant, Jenifer; Whyte, Ian; Carter, Gregory
- Relation
- Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry Vol. 54, Issue 6, p. 591-601
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0004867419897818
- Publisher
- Sage
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Background: Hospital-treated deliberate self-poisoning is common, with a median patient age of around 33 years. Clinicians are less familiar with assessing older adults with self-poisoning and little is known about their specific clinical requirements. Objective: To identify clinically important factors in the older-age population by comparing older adults (65+ years) with middle-aged adults (45–64 years) during an index episode of hospital-treated deliberate self-poisoning. Methods: A prospective, longitudinal, cohort study of people presenting to a regional referral centre for deliberate self-poisoning (Calvary Mater Newcastle, Australia) over a 10-year period (2003–2013). We compared older-aged adults with middle-aged adults on demographic, toxicological and psychiatric variables and modelled independent predictors of referral for psychiatric hospitalisation on discharge with logistic regression. Results: There were (n = 157) older-aged and (n = 925) middle-aged adults. The older-aged group was similar to the middle-aged group in several ways: proportion living alone, reporting suicidal ideation/planning, prescribed antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs, and with a psychiatric diagnosis. However, the older-aged group were also different in several ways: greater proportion with cognitive impairment, higher medical morbidity, longer length of stay, and greater prescription and ingestion of benzodiazepines in the deliberate self-poisoning event. Older age was not a predictor of referral for psychiatric hospitalisation in the multivariate model. Conclusion: Older-aged patients treated for deliberate self-poisoning have a range of clinical needs including ones that are both similar to and different from middle-aged patients. Individual clinical assessment to identify these needs should be followed by targeted interventions, including reduced exposure to benzodiazepines.
- Subject
- deliberate self-poisoning; older adults; hospital; SDG 3; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1436842
- Identifier
- uon:40155
- Identifier
- ISSN:0004-8674
- Language
- eng
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