ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the frequency of somatic disorders among suicide attempters, follow-up studies, and studies on the risk of suicide attempt in certain somatic disorders. In 1980 B. Nielsen, A. G. Wang, and U. Bille-Brahe examined 207 suicide attempters admitted to a Danish psychiatric ward. A total of 71 among the 207 patients had a chronic somatic disorder. V. P. Kontaxakis and colleagues have compared suicide attempters with concurrent psychiatric and somatic disorder and suicide attempters with a psychiatric disorder alone. Migraine patients were identified according to defined criteria and compared to nonmigraine patients regarding suicide attempts. In an American investigation, Gupta and colleagues studied the frequency of suicidal thoughts among patients with psoriasis in a dermatological ward, using a self-rating questionnaire. In 1983 Y. Kaminer and D. R. Robbins reviewed the literature on insulin overdose. They found 17 suicides and 80 attempted suicides in the literature, and they discussed various aspects of the reported cases.
