Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Merete Nordentoft, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
- Second opponent: Senior Consultant Erlend Mork, Oslo University Hospital, Norway
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor II Arne Stray-Pedersen, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Associate Professor Gudrun Høiseth, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Hilde Myhren, Oslo University Hospital
Summary
This thesis is about patients admitted to the hospital after suicide attempts. The thesis's overall theme is to describe patients admitted to the hospital after suicide attempts using violent methods. These patients were compared with patients hospitalized after suicide attempts by self-poisoning. Although we found a higher degree of psychosis but less anxiety and depression for the violent method group, we found no differences in psychiatric treatment before the suicide attempt. The thesis analyzes similarities and differences between the two groups before the suicide attempt, during the hospital stay, and in the year after admission.
This thesis aimed to compare background, previous mental health and psychiatric treatment, and conditions during hospital stays between the two groups. Furthermore, the groups were compared to intention to die before admission, suicidal thoughts, depression, and hopelessness during the hospital stay. We compared the quality of life between the groups and the general population.
The patients admitted after suicide attempts with violent methods had more frequent psychosis, but less anxiety disorders and less affective disorders compared to the patients admitted with self-poisonings. They also had a higher score for suicidal intention but a lower score for depression. Approximately half of the patients in both groups were in psychiatric treatment at the time of the suicide attempt, and no differences were found between the groups in reporting previous suicide attempts. Although there were no differences in suicidal ideation and hopelessness between the groups at any measurement time, there were high scores for both suicidal ideation and hopelessness even one year after the suicide attempt.
Quality of life was reported to be low for both groups without much difference, except for physical dimensions, which were measured lower for the violent method group. Both groups had a lower quality of life than the general population despite anxiety and depression decreasing over time.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.