Care utilization and the incidence of suicide: Suicide victims' contacts with primary health care and psychiatry in six psychiatric districts in the County of Stockholm from 1979 to 1990

The aim of this study was to ascertain whether suicide victims had ever been in contact with a primary health-care centre, a psychiatric outpatient treatment centre or any form of institutional psychiatric care, and whether there had been any change in such patterns over time. The results show an increase in the number of suicide victims seeking help from the primary health-care centres. The transformation within psychiatry from hospitalized care to out-patient care resulted in a corresponding increase in the number of suicide victims who applied to psychiatric out-patient care services. The move towards non-institutional forms of care has probably contributed to the decrease in the total number of suicides observed during the study period.