[Paraplegia after suicidal attempt]

For the first time in Switzerland, patients were followed up who had become paraplegic after a suicidal attempt, and who had to spend a certain time in a center for paraplegics (corresponding to 3 % of all traumatically induced cases of myeloparalysis). Records and catamnestic data of patients with paraplegia after suicidal attempt during the years 1982 - 1996 (n = 38)--all being or having been patients of the centers for paraplegics f Basel and Nottwil (canton of Lucerne)--were evaluated. Catamnestic investigations performed from one month to 14 years after the suicidal attempt, based on a structured dialogue with a standardized, computerized questionnaire, led, among others, to the following conclusions: The average age of these patients (20 males and 18 females) was 38 years. The most frequently encountered suicidal method, leading to the paraplegic lesion, was a fall from a window of a building (89,6 %). In 55 % of the cases, psychiatric disease, especially depression, alcohol and drug dependence, had been diagnosed prior to the suicidal attempt. 37 % of patients hat attempted suicide at least once before the attempt leading to the paraplegic condition. 34 % had been hospitalized for psychiatric reasons on an earlier occasion. In 26 %, a farewell letter was written. As far as the level of the paraplegic lesions is concerned, patients were equally distributed (50 % each) between thoracal/cervical and lumbar lesions. The associated sexual impairment was experienced by each one of the 38 patients as a most disturbing problem. Despite the limited number of cases and the partially short time interval between the suicidal attempt and the follow-up investigation, results seem to indicate that such patients are not likely to commit suicide on a later occasion. One single patient had tried to commit suicide several times after the suicidal attempt event under discussion.