Identifying psychiatric suicides for research purposes.

Unusual accidental deaths recorded for former public psychiatric patients during a 3-year period in Missouri were compared with data previously published on suicide and undetermined deaths. Demographic and diagnostic data suggested that undetermined deaths resemble suicides, while the remaining unusual accidents do not. For purposes of estimating incidence or prevalence, it is recommended that "undetermined deaths" might well be combined with suicides, while the remaining accidents should not.