Physical vulnerability and fatal self-harm in the elderly

Abstract

Although the high rate of suicide in elderlypeople is conventionally explained asbeingdue to greater intent to die ,we have noted elderly Sri Lankans dyingafter relatively mild poisoning. Using data from cases of yellow oleander poisoning, we investigated the effect of age on outcome in 1697 patients, controlling for gender and amount ingested.In fully adjusted models, people over 64 years old were13.8 (95% CI 3.6^53.0) times more likely to die than those less than 25 years old.The high number of suicides in elderly people globally is likely to be due, inpart, to the difficulty they face in surviving the effects of both the poisoning and its treatment.