Impending demographic changes mean that the proportion of the elderly in the population will increase. Suicide rates increase with age. The literature on elderly suicide, with emphasis on methodology, cross-national rates and trends, correlates, cultural factors, location and method, attempted suicides and prevention, is critically reviewed in this paper.

Potential explanations for regional and cross-national variations in the relationship between suicide rates and age require further study.

The increase in violent incidents on an acute psychiatric ward over a 15-month period was found to be strongly associated with the increase in use of temporary nursing staff (r = 0.63; P = 0.0005). The change in staffing patterns accounted for 39% of the variance in violence. An examination of the characteristics of all patients admitted to the ward revealed that the violent patients were significantly younger, more likely to have been admitted compulsorily and less likely to be depressed than non-violent ones.

A potentially testable model with five sequential stages was proposed to explain these findings.