National Trends in Emergency Department Visits for Suicide Attempts and Intentional Self-Harm
Dr. Greg Rhee has gotten an important research article published in the Journal of Psychiatry. This study estimated national annual trends and characteristics of emergency department visits for suicide attempts and intentional self-harm in the United States from 2011 to 2020.
Article Excerpt:
Suicide continues to be a major public health problem in the United States, and suicide rates have risen by 35% since 2000 (1, 2). Suicide attempts are the single most important risk factor for suicide and the risk factor most likely to precipitate contact with the health care system (3–5). It is estimated that 1 in 25 individuals who present to the hospital for self-harm will die by suicide within 5 years (6). Since suicide prevention relies on identifying individuals at high risk for suicide, suicide attempts offer critical opportunities to intervene to prevent future suicide (7–9).
Since many patients are treated in emergency departments after a suicide attempt, emergency departments are an important setting for determining epidemiologic trends in suicidal behavior, especially because the United States does not have a national monitoring system for suicide attempts. Over the past three decades, several studies have raised concern about rising emergency department visits for suicide attempts (10–13). A U.S. national study of emergency departments found that the average annual number of emergency department visits for suicide attempts and intentional self-harm more than doubled between 1993 and 2008 (11). A more recent study found that rates were stable between 2006 and 2013 (14).
Yet, there have been no nationally representative U.S. estimates of annual trends in emergency department visits for suicide attempts and intentional self-harm since 2013, including trends stratified by sociodemographic groups. Given the important role of emergency departments in suicide prevention, examining national trends in visits for suicide attempts provides an opportunity to identify population-wide unmet mental health needs and inform suicide prevention strategies.
Learn more here: https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.20230397
Research Area(s) of Interest:
Population-based clinical outcomes research and health care policy
Dr. Rhee is a psychiatric epidemiologist and mental health services researcher studying the access to care, quality of care, and clinical and patient-reported outcomes in patients with psychiatric or substance use disorders. My current research focuses on affective disorders (e.g., depression and bipolar disorder), suicidality, cannabis use disorder, and opioid use disorder among other conditions. My expertise is grounded in population-based observational studies using large databases to characterize unmet needs and national practice patterns in the assessment and management of behavioral health conditions. I also investigate long-term comparative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions for psychiatric and substance use disorders.
Dr. Rhee is an accredited professional statistician (PStat®) certified by the American Statistical Association with extensive experience with administrative claims data, national health and healthcare survey data, and other data sources including electronic health records, and mortality data. He has served as a senior statistician in 100+ peer-reviewed research articles and has successfully served as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on multiple research projects funded by major federal agencies, including Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and National Institutes of Health (NIH).
