Suicide attempts among Greenlandic forensic psychiatric patients – prevalence and determinants

ABSTRACT

This nationwide cross-sectional study of the lifetime prevalence and determinants of suicide attempts includes 90% of Greenlandic forensic psychiatric patients. Retrospective data were collected from electronic patient files, court documents, and forensic psychiatric assessments using a coding form from a similar study. We used unpaired t-tests and chi² or Fisher’s exact test. The lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts was 36% (n = 32), and no difference in prevalence was found between male and female patients (p = 0.95). Patients having attempted suicide had a higher rate of physical abuse in childhood (p = 0.04), family history of substance misuse (p = 0.007), and criminal convictions among family members (p = 0.03) than patients who had never attempted suicide. Women primarily used self-poisoning in their latest suicide attempts (67%), whereas men more often used sharp objects or a firearm (42%). Over a third of Greenlandic forensic patients have attempted suicide at some point in their life, and patients with traumatic childhood experiences are at higher risk of suicidal behaviour. It is not possible to conclude whether the lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts among Greenlandic forensic patients is comparable to that of other high-risk groups in other Arctic regions due to methodological differences among the very few other comparable studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Circumpolar
• arctic
• mental disorder
• psychiatry
• suicide attempt

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the staff at the psychiatric area of Queen Ingrid’s Hospital and the psychiatric outpatient clinic in Nuuk for supporting the data collection and the study. The authors would also like to acknowledge Francisco Alberdi Olano from the psychiatric area in Nuuk for his comments and suggestions to the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Aarhus University Hospital Psychiatry, and the Psychiatric Research Fund of Central Denmark Region. Neither were involved in decisions about study design, data collection or analysis, interpretation of data, report writing, or the decision to submit this manuscript for publication.