[Suicides committed by patients who receive psychiatric care]

Psychiatric institutions (hospitals and out-patient clinics) are obliged to report cases of suicide to the authorities, but it has not been known to what extent this obligation has been fulfilled. The Norwegian Board of Health Supervision wished to provide an overview of reporting frequencies, descriptions of the extent of the problem, reasons for suicide in patients undergoing psychiatric treatment, whether the institutions use these occurrences to improve the quality of their work and how these cases were handled by the 18 county medical officers.

The county medical officers completed registration forms and closing letters for each reported case of suicide committed by patients in psychiatric care (in 2005 and 2006), and sent these documents to the Norwegian Board of Health Supervision.

34/176 (19.3%) suicides were not reported according to the requirements. Almost none of the institutions seemed to use the occurrences in their work to improve quality. There were large differences between the counties both with respect to the number of - and the handling of the reports.

The psychiatric hospitals and out-patient clinics must fulfil their obligation to report suicides to the authorities to a larger degree, and to use such occurrences in their work to prevent suicides.