Urgences psychiatriques liées aux actes suicidaires en 2008. Incidence et pronostic

Suicide attempts accounted for 2 to 4% of all emergency department visits. The majority of them are drug poisonings (91%) whose profile has qualitatively changed over time particularly for psycholeptic drugs. The suicidal behaviour corresponds to a plurifactorial model involving sociocultural, environmental and psychopathological factors that interact with each other. Irrespective of any psychiatric consideration, suicide attempt is the most significant predictor (and sometimes the only one) of suicide. Virtually, all mental disorders are associated with suicidal crisis. The risk of suicide is 20 to 120 times higher in patients with psychiatric disorders than in the general population. Psychiatric comorbidity is linked to suicidal risk. The risk, emergency, dangerousness (RUD) evaluation assesses the suicidal potential; it takes into account the individual's personal, family and social context, the suicidal process and its dangerousness.