Suicide and attempted suicide: the Rehoboth experience.

INTRODUCTION

St Mary's Hospital in Rehoboth, Namibia, attends to all individuals who have health problems that are considered serious by the community. The aim of this study was to describe the existing suicide management approach in Rehoboth.

METHOD

Clinical charts of all patients who attended St Mary's Hospital Rehoboth were manually collected and reviewed. In the process, analysis of the past records of patients of Rehoboth who exhibited the risk factors and/or were diagnosed and treated for suicide and/or attempted suicide for a predetermined period of 1 January to 31 December 2001 was undertaken.

RESULTS

A total of 45 individuals were found to have attempted and/or committed suicide out of a total of 12 910 patient visits for the period. Of these, 51% were admitted, 7% were referred out and 42% were treated as out patients. Sixty-three per cent of the people used prescribed and over the counter drugs for attempting suicide. The words suicide or attempted suicide were not commonly used by healthcare providers in Rehoboth. Incidentally, HIV/AIDS did not seem to be associated with the patients who attempted suicide in this community.

CONCLUSIONS

While there was no particular strategy in place in Rehoboth to deal with suicide and parasuicide, the emergency care for patients who attempted suicide in Rehoboth was apparently adequate, with no deaths in the hospital. However, the lack of a clear, coordinated multidisciplinary management approach to the survivors of a suicide attempt appeared to be a serious gap in management. It is also recommended that an appropriate name, code, recording and reporting system for suicide and attempted suicide should be adopted for use by health care personnel in Namibia in order to more accurately document the level of suicidal activity in the country.