High-lethality of suicide attempts associated with platelet to lymphocyte ratio and mean platelet volume in psychiatric inpatient setting

Abstract

Objectives

A wide range of potential psychosocial, biological, genetic and environmental factors may interact with each other in determining suicidal behaviours. The aim of this study was to evaluate several biological parameters referred to the complete blood count values in 259 suicide attempters (SA) and 164 non-suicide attempters (control group), according to the lethality of suicidal behaviour.

Methods

After attempting suicide, subjects were admitted to the emergency ward of the IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino and later to the section of Psychiatry from 1 January 2014 to 31 June 2019. Socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, as well as blood cells, were collected.

Results

Individuals with high-lethality suicide attempts had a higher number of neutrophils, mean platelet volume, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-lymphocyte ratio, and lower number of lymphocytes relative to both those with low-lethality suicide attempts and control group. After regression analysis, only the mean platelet volume and platelet to lymphocyte ratio resulted associated with a high-lethality suicide attempt (HLSA).

Conclusions

Our findings provide potential and useful peripheral biological markers able to help clinicians in understanding the complex phenomenon of suicide. However, further studies are needed to confirm the present findings.

Keywords:

• Suicide
• platelet
• lethality
• suicide attempt
• blood cell

Acknowledgements

This work was developed within the framework of the DINOGMI Department of Excellence of MIUR 2018-2022 (law 232/2016).

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.