Yuki Chiu
Research Mentor: Lindsay Bornheimer
Mentor Department: Not Available, Social Work
Author(s): Yuki Chiu, Emma Anderson, Ganesh Palaniappan, Lindsay Bornheimer
Session: Session 1 (9:00 AM – 9:50 AM)
Presentation Type: Poster 127
Abstract
Drug overdoses continue to be one of the leading methods for suicide attempts, with data showing many individuals make attempts using their prescribed psychiatric medication. Suicide attempts are also common in individuals with bipolar diagnoses, with the lifetime prevalence being 33.9%. This begs the question: what is the prevalence of drug overdose using perscribed psychiatric medication among patients with bipolar disorder who attempt suicide? This project focused on suicide prevention, particularly in individuals struggling with bipolar disorders. Over 1500 medical charts of individuals who presented to the University of Michigan emergency room for a suicide attempt were reviewed. Examinations of these charts focused on presence of a bipolar diagnosis, suicide re-attempts that occured within a year, age of the patient, and years that attempts took place. This data could lead to implementation of newer treatment protocols to help prevent suicide in this population. As data coding and cleaning is still in progress, there still aren’t certain results. However, I suspect that suicide attempts made by medication overdoses, specifically Seroquel overdoses, will be quite common. This could lead to consideration for possible preventative measures such as electronic pill dispensers (that’ll only dispense medication needed at that time) to minimize related suicide attempts.
