Photo Illustration: Amirali Sharifi

Higher health care usage reported among suicide cases

Study reports suicide victims hold more than double the average rate of healthcare visits

A new study from the University of Alberta shows Albertans who commit suicide are more frequent users of the healthcare system.

The study compared the number and types of health-care visits of Albertans who committed suicide to the general population in order to determine any differences. Demographics of age, race and socioeconomic status were also used and compared between the two groups.

The research concluded that Albertans who committed suicide had a much higher rate of health-care usage, averaging around 17 visits a year, compared to the typical Albertan who uses the system less than eight times a year.

In addition, 60 per cent of the patients from the 850 suicide cases studied had visited an emergency department at least once in the 12 months prior to their deaths.

Lory Laing, acting Dean of Public Health at the U of A and supervisor of the study, said the differences in the types of visits were significant in patients who committed suicide.

“They used much more emergency visits, more community health visits, and more hospital discharges,” she said.

Laing noted many of the visits were related to mental health diagnoses, such as depression, anxiety, and stress disorder.

“They’re seeking health for obvious mental health problems and they’re seeking health frequently, but we’re still not able to give them the help they need.”

Ken Morrison, a graduate from the U of A’s masters of public health program, initiated the study in 2009 after reading a newspaper clipping that claimed suicide is the leading cause of death in males from the approximate age group of 10 to 44.

Part of Morrison’s study focused on the fact that the largest number of suicides occur among middle-aged men.

“People assume that the suicide rate is highest in adolescents, late teens and early 20s,” Morrison said, adding that his students estimated the average age wavered around 18 to 20. “There certainly are issues with adolescent suicide, particularly among First Nations, but the actual number of deaths is highest at around (the age of) 42.” 

Morrison hopes the results can be used to better implement effective suicide prevention actions in Alberta, which suffers from the second-highest rate of suicides among all provinces.

Although understanding suicide is a complex matter, Laing believes part of the problem rests in the kind of health services Albertans receive.

“I think we need more primary care services in Alberta. We don’t have enough,” she said, referring to servicing patients with basic diagnoses and treatment of common illnesses. “I think people in general are having difficulty accessing primary care physicians. In this particular population, the outcome is higher mortality.

“They need long-term care in the community so that a primary care physician is better able to really get at root causes rather than what brings an acute episode into an emergency department,” Laing added.

Although the Alberta government’s reaction and response to the study remains to be seen, Morrison believes the main benefit of the coverage on his research is the discussion on suicide that is taking place.

“It’s good that this issue is coming to the forefront,” Morrison said. “I think it’s a really good thing to remove some of the stigma around mental health issues, and hopefully this will encourage people with mental health issues to seek care.”

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