[Suicide during inpatient psychiatric treatment]

Although psychiatric therapy has become more effective, in-patients' rate of suicide increased. The methodological deficits of studies has not allowed to derive a good preventive management until now. Results from literature to this topic are reviewed. In an own investigation concerning the suicides of in-patients of the Psychiatric University Hospital in Berlin from 1951 to 1983 we propose five types of constellation of suicide as a new possible procedure to elaborate the results. Preventive consequences and more adequate designs for further studies are discussed.