[Care of patients after attempted suicide: tasks, problems and possibilities of improvement]

Inpatient and post-inpatient psychiatric/psychotherapeutic treatment of suicides poses a considerable number of problems which have to be handled by the institutions concerned: These problems are formidable because of the high incidence of attempted suicides and the considerable amount of work necessarily involved in caring for such persons. Care should by no means be restricted to the acute crisis; attempts should also be directed by preventing relapses and at improving the overall psychopathological status and social readjustment. The present manner in which suicides are looked after has quite a number of drawbacks, e.g. insufficient attention is paid to the requirements of the inpatient; patients fail to refer to the hospital during the period of their post-suicide attempt care; the incidence of "dropouts" during outpatient aftercare is very high; there is insufficient cooperation between the persons and institutions involved in the care programme. Improvements are presented which have been successfully tried out in practice.