Age of First Suicide Attempt in Men and Women : An Admixture Analysis

Abstract EN

Objectives.

To define different subgroups of suicide attempters according to age at onset of suicide attempts.

Methods.

Participants were 229 suicide attempters (147 females; 82 males) admitted to a general hospital in Madrid, Spain.

We used admixture analysis to determine the best-fitting model for the age at onset of suicide attempts separated by sex.

Results.

The best fitted model for the age at onset of suicide attempts was a mixture of two gaussian distributions.

Females showed an earlier age at onset of suicide attempts in both Gaussian distributions (mean ± S.D.) (26.98 ± 5.69 and 47.98 ± 14.13) than males (32.77 ± 8.11 and 61.31 ± 14.61).

Early-onset female attempters were more likely to show borderline personality disorder than late-onset female attempters (OR = 11.11; 95% CI = 2.43–50.0).

Conclusions.

Age at onset of suicide attempts characterizes different subpopulations of suicide attempters.