Suicidal ideation and sobriety: Should acute alcohol intoxication be taken into account for psychiatric evaluation?

Autor: Daniel Keyes, Philip Talarico, Blake Hardin, Alexander Molter, Honesty Lee, Hisham Valiuddin, Brandon Moore
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 46:1306-1312
ISSN: 1530-0277
0145-6008
Popis: When evaluating an emergency department (ED) patient who presents with suicidal ideation, it is a common practice to wait until the patient's ethanol level is known or calculated to be less than 80 mg/dl to evaluate patient safety. We know of no study that establishes an association between the degree of alcohol intoxication based on a blood alcohol level (BAL) and reported suicidal ideation (SI) upon recovery.We conducted a retrospective review of patients evaluated in a Midwestern ED for the calendar year 2017. Cases were selected if they had a psychiatric social work consult and a blood alcohol level drawn while in the ED. Patients were selected on the same 2 days each week throughout the year to meet the sample size requirements of the study, resulting in 1084 cases for review. Chi-square analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between suicidal ideation and alcohol intoxication as defined by a BAL ≥80 mg/dl.Among patients presenting with suicidal ideation and a concurrent BAL ≥80 mg/dl, 69% no longer reported suicidal ideation when their BAL was80 mg/dl, compared to 38% for patients without a positive BAL on presentation (chi-square, p = 0.000012).Our data show that patients presenting to the ED with complaints related to suicidal behavior who have a BAL ≥80 mg/dl are more likely to no longer endorse having suicidal ideation once their BAL is 80 mg/dl than patients with similar presenting complaints and no alcohol intoxication. This finding supports the common ED practice of re-assessing suicidal ideation among individuals who are initially intoxicated once their BAL has decreased below 80 mg/dl.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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