Suicide in psychiatric and non-psychiatric populations

An analysis of all 776 suicides reported in Monroe County, New York, from 1966 through 1975 showed that psychiatric patients differ in systematic ways from other individuals who commit suicide. Forty-three percent of the total suicides were committed by patients with recorded contacts in the Monroe County Psychiatric Case Register. While suicide rates by age and sex for the overall population were similar to those reported previously, rates for the subgroup of psychiatric patients yielded little variation by age or sex.