The findings of this study demonstrated that the methods of suicide attempt had an effect on the need for hospitalisation. Among the OECD countries, South Korea has the highest suicide rate, which is two times higher than that in the United States [22]. While suicide ranks as the 13th leading cause of life lost with 800,000 deaths worldwide annually [23] , it is the 5th leading cause of death in South Korea [24]. The ED is an important point-of-care in the healthcare process for patients who have attempted suicide. In this study, drug overdose was the most common method of suicide (52.4% of the total patients), and had similar rates in both the hospitalised and discharged groups. Walker et al had reported drug overdose to be a strong predictor of ICU admission [25] while Kim et al classified stabbing, hanging, drowning, and jumping off a height as clinically serious, lethal methods, and severe depression, psychological disturbance, and repetitive suicidal ideation as factors that indicated high medical severity [26]. This study excluded patients who died while in the ED or within 24 h of hospitalisation. Those patients represented less than 10% of all suicide attempted patients.
Those who were discharged from the hospital in this study were younger by approximately 10 years and were more likely to be female (68.8%). Age may be a factor in that the younger are discharged because they are healthier and recover better. Gender as a risk factor for suicide has been studied extensively. Female attempted non-fatal suicide behaviour [27, 28]. Several studies have highlighted the concept of non-suicidal self-harm (NSSI) and have distinguished between suicidal attempts and NSSI [29, 30]. It has been reported that NSSI attempts consists of patients that are younger and more frequently female and that these attempts are less fatal with more frequent use of cutting methods [31]. Data in this study included all patients with deliberate self-harm without questioning the authenticity of the suicide attempts. Further research is needed on whether there are many NSSI patients in the discharged group.
Studies have shown associations between alcohol use disorder and suicidal behaviour [32, 33]. Salles et al reported that an alcohol use disorder was not associated with hospitalisation for inpatient psychiatric care, whereas depression was a clearly associated factor [34]. This present study also showed that alcohol use was not associated with hospitalisation; rather, alcohol use before suicidal behavior was higher in the discharged group. The higher rate of alcohol use rate in the discharged group may show that the alcohol causes non-serious impulsive suicide behaviour.
Mortin J reported that in the elderly with suicide intentions alcohol use disorder showed a strong association with hospital-treated suicide [35]. In Baltic countries, there was a high suicide rate, but due to their restrictive alcohol policy, there was a lower annual male suicide rate during 1986-80 [36].
South Korea ranks first in suicide rate and twenty-three in alcohol consumption [37]. Thus, the association between suicide rate and alcohol consumption may not be clear. However, this study only investigated whether the patients consumed alcohol and not whether the patients were diagnosed with an alcohol use disorder. The amount of alcohol consumed and the blood alcohol concentration were not ascertained. These aspects need to be evaluated in future research.
One in eight patients who visit the ED is a psychiatric patient, contributing to ED overcrowding [38, 39]. The ED LOS is associated with increased ED crowding. The walk-out rate was 0.34 patients/hour when the ED LOS was less than 6 hours and 0.77 patients per hour when the patients’ ED LOS was more than 6 hours [20]. In this study, the average ED LOS in the hospitalized group was 11.4 ± 18.8 hours vs 4.2 ± 12.3 hours in the discharged group, which significantly contributed to the ED crowding. The overall ED LOS of patients with psychiatric emergencies and suicidal/self-harm patients had a median duration of 2.4 h, which showed that the duration had been maintained at a similar value for 3 years, with local differences [40].
In this study, the hospitalised group had a significantly longer ED LOS than the discharged group, with an average duration above 6 hours. Besides the time for assessment and treatment, the time to make hospitalisation decisions contributed to the long ED LOS. In both hospitals where this study was conducted, the hospitalisation decision for patients who attempted suicide via drug overdose, hanging, and drowning was made by department of emergency medicines. South Korea does not have a dedicated toxicology department at hospitals, leaving the hospitalisation decision to the department of emergency medicine or internal medicine physicians. Therefore, the ED LOS is extended when the patients cannot be admitted to a psychiatric ward due to physical injuries and is even longer with ED crowding.
In this study, the ORs for hospitalisation based on mental status at presentation were 2.027 for verbal response, 6.200 for pain response, and 39.931 for unresponsiveness. The OR for consciousness was 1.840, indicating that to avoid ED crowding and improve the ED occupancy ratio, emergency physicians should not delay the hospitalisation decision when the patients were not alert. Jo et al reported that ED crowding was associated with a higher mortality rate in critically ill patients [41]. In addition to the level of alertness, the socioeconomic status can affect the hospitalisation decision. Even in alert patients, a report estimates that approximately 25% of patients could have been discharged if they had social support, and that clinical severity alone does not determine the need for hospitalisation [42]. In this study, consultancy care was provided to the caregivers when hospitalized patients had altered mental status, and for unconscious patients who received a psychiatric consultation after they regained consciousness. All hospitalised patients were transferred or discharged after the psychiatric follow-up consultation.
Our study is different from previous reports as it analyses ED LOS, evaluate factors that affect ED LOS, and emphasizes the need to prevent delays in the ED to ensure adequate in-hospital treatment. The RRRS had high sensitivity and specificity for the hospitalization decision of deliberated self-harm in this study. In the RRRS, the absence of loss of consciousness, confusion, and coma are assigned 1, 2, and 3 points, respectively. It does not have a large effect on the total score. Based on a regression analysis, the level of consciousness should be considered as a single factor for the hospitalisation decision. The RRRS and mental status are objective indicators that provide meaningful guidelines to aid hospitalization decisions. Weiland et al. reported that emergency physicians were uniformly confident deciding to shift patients at risk of suicide or self-harm to the inpatient department [43]. This study could provide guidance to emergency physician in South Korea or countries with similar situations.
The planned suicide attempt was twice as frequently in the hospitalisation group than in the discharge group (OR 1.728). A previous report indicated that planned suicidal attempts have severe medical consequences[44]. For patients with a planned suicidal attempt, a psychiatric follow-up after initial care is important.
In this study, the history of psychiatric care or current psychiatric medication usage did not differ significantly between the study groups. This may suggest that suicidal behaviour was present regardless of psychiatric treatment, or that psychiatric treatment was inadequate to prevent suicidal attempts. Harada et al reported that females tended to be over-represented in the psychiatric consultation group, and males in the non-consultation group. Poisoning by prescription drugs was used more frequently as a method of suicide in the consultation group. Moreover, the prevalence of adult personality disorders and schizophrenia and related disorders were higher in the consultation group than in the non-consultation group [45].
Shepard et al. reported that based on the reported numbers alone, the national cost of suicides and suicidal attempts in the United States in 2013 was $58.4 billion. After adjustment for under-reporting, the cost increased to a total of $93.5 billion, which was 2.1–2.8 times that reported in previous studies [46]. In South Korea, statistics on suicidal attempts are only available through ED data. Furthermore, the cost of medical care and related indirect costs have not been investigated. Considering the high prevalence of suicide in South Korea, if the direct and indirect costs of ED use due to deliberate self-harm and by under-reporting of suicide attempts are studied, the national cost of suicide is likely to be high. Further research is needed to assess the national costs associated with suicide.
This study had several limitations. One limitationis the failure of many patients to participate in the data collection or patient exclusion due to missing data. Moreover, the study was conducted at tertiary teaching hospitals in metropolitan areas and may not be representative of ED situations in rural areas. Further research should include multiple levels of hospitals nationwide to identify other issues in the medical hospitalisation process of patients who attempt suicide.
In this study, patients in the ICU and GW were grouped in the hospitalised group and compared with those in the ED discharged group. Since close observation is available in the ICU in both the study hospitals, patients who attempted suicide by drug overdose, hanging, and drowning were hospitalised and admitted to the ICU if they had a high risk of suicide re-attempt even if their physical injury was treatable in the GW. Therefore, the hospitalisation rate for the ICU and GW was difficult to determine, and it was more appropriate to include both as the total hospitalised group. Furthermore, continuous psychiatric consultation is not provided during hospitalisation and is only provided following discharge. Another limitation is that bed availability at the time of hospitalisation was not assessed. It may be possible that an early hospitalisation decision was made, but a bed was not immediately available. However, this may not add a significant bias as patients are typically transferred to another hospital in case of unavailability soon after the hospitalisation decision.
This study was also limited by the absence of long-term findings such as the results of before and after admission to the emergency room due to the inability to conduct a longitudinal study. In this study, data were collected when entering and leaving the emergency room. Although the coordinators have not changed, residents change annually. Therefore, hospitalization decisions by different doctors may vary.
This study included 2.6% of ED visits by patients who were 19 years of age or older without an existing illness in South Korea. When suicidal/self-harming patients desired medical hospitalisation due to physical injury, there is an extra barrier to the hospitalization decision for departments other than psychiatry due to the combination of the patients’ psychiatric condition, with their physical injury. The present study demonstrates that the level of consciousness and RRRS scores can be used as factors for the hospitalization in patients who attempted suicide. In future, a longitudinal study, including adolescents, will be meaningful.