Introduction:The suicide prevention is a public health priority in France; there are approximately 12,000 deaths by suicide (prevalence 24 cases for 100,000 inhabitants) and 150,000 suicide attempts per year; these data probably are an underestimate. The purpose of this work is to identify the incidence and profile of patients following a suicide attempt examined in Emergency Departments (ED), and to develop a different epidemiological aspect. Methods: This was a one-week prospective study conducted in ED of various sizes, situated all over the French territory. This inquiry has been realised with the help of a questionnaire filled in at the patient's bedside. Data concerned the patient, the suicidal gesture, and the patient's evolution. Results: Data for a total of 640 patients following suicide attempts were collected from 57 EDs; the mean suicide attempts rate per ED was 11.2 ±9 (range 0-51) and the number of patients in one week was >7 in 75.4% of the EDs. Except for <15-year old patients, the number of females predominated (64.5%). The mean age was 34.8 ±13.6 years (range 12-95 years) ; only 21 (3.3%) of the patients were >65 years old, and the majority (77%) were 15 to 44 years old. The social status indicated that 35.5% of the patients were unmarried, 36.7% were married and almost quarter of them were separated from their spouse, 8.3% were divorced, 3.1% were widowers, and 13.6% were in cohabitation. Nearly 45.3% of the women were unemployed vs. 41.4% of the men. Except for those patients >65-years old, the age brackets, which were mostly concerned by professional inactivity, were 35-44 years for women, 25-34 years for men, and 55-64 years in both. Employees, students or schoolkids, and civil servants gathered almost 78% of all occupations. A psychiatric past history including suicide attempt, psychiatric hospitalization, or consultation was found in 68.8% of women and 62.1% of men. Drug addiction, HIV seropositivity, or chronic alcoholism concerned respectively 6.7, 1.1, and 12.8% of patients, and were significantly more frequent among men. A medical physician or a psychiatrist had been consulted by 40.5% of patients during the month preceding the suicidal act. The mean time interval between the suicide attempt and ED consultation was 332 ±550 min (range: 15 min-4 days). The suicidal procedure most often (73.3%) was unique (one procedure); when two different procedures were used in 24.7%, it was mostly in association with alcohol ingestion. Voluntary drug intoxications by ingestion were employed 580 times (90.6%), associated 143 times to alcohol ingestion and/or 27 times to others suicidal gestures. Alcohol ingestion was sometimes the only suicidal gesture (1.4%). The other suicidal procedures were selfmutilation by phlebotomy (5%) or with knife (0.8%), illicit drugs abuse (1.9%), hanging (1.7%), household products or glass ingestion (1.1%), gas inhalation (0.6%), drowning (0.6%), road accident (0.5%), firearm (0.3%), jump (0.16%), electrocution (0.16%), or immolation (0.16%). The majority of patients ha...
