There has been little change in the incidence of suicidal behaviour and reattempts in recent years. Evidence is needed on the incidence of suicidal behaviour in the psychiatric population and its follow-up. A prospective multi-centre case-control study. The sample covered the cases of 440 patients seen as psychiatric emergencies. For this purpose, we used the Vital Adverse Event Scale by Brugha and screening with the Columbia Scale. The sample was divided into three groups: patients without prior suicide attempts, patients with an index attempt and patients with more than one attempt. At two years, the clinical histories of these patients were reviewed, assessing for suicidal behaviour. A total of 49.1% (n=216) of the patients required urgent psychiatric care during the follow-up period, and 2.7% eventually committed suicide. The data shows a differential profile between the three groups analysed. Among them, the group of reattempters required the highest number of interventions regarding suicide behaviour (11.0%; χ2=30.3; d.f.=2; P<.001). Eventually, 6.1% of the patients without prior suicide attempts tried to commit suicide for the first time, and 21.7% (n=60) of the remaining sample repeated their prior attempts. The highest risk of attempt was in the thirty days following the urgent intervention. After this period, risk distribution varied for each group. Three items from the Columbia Scale predict suicide behaviour. The results show the need for assessing suicidal behaviour for all patients who receive psychiatric urgent care, including during the follow-up period. A more thorough control should be performed during the first months for patients without prior suicide attempts, and longer periods for those patients who have already tried to commit suicide.

Some lifestyle habits and problematic behaviors have been associated to non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescents in cross-sectional studies but their role as individual risk factors needs to be analyzed through proper longitudinal designs. The objective is to analyze and summarize the evidence on the association of lifestyle habits and problem behaviors with NSSI in adolescents. Longitudinal studies were searched in Medline, Embase and APA PsycInfo without date or language restrictions. Adolescents with and without exposure factors were compared. Out of 5295 identified records, 13 longitudinal studies were included (39,575 participants). Studies included different age ranges (10–20 years, mean 14.3, SD 2.4), and 78% were female. Results showed a statistically significant increased risk of NSSI with regular smoking, alcohol use, early cannabis use, and poor physical activity. Inconsistent results were found for use of technology and sleep habits, and no studies analyzed dietary habits or gambling. Most studies were of moderate or high quality but certainty of the evidence was very low according to GRADE criteria. Longitudinal evidence suggests that some lifestyle habits and problem behaviors are risk factors for NSSI in adolescents. These findings highlight the importance of developing strategies to promote healthy lifestyles in adolescents.

Introduction. The Verbal (VF), Semantic (SF) and Phonemic Fluency (PF) tests are commonly used in clinical practice. Having different alternative tests, that could also allow for the effect of demographic variables, would improve their use as screening tests, making it possible to differentiate patients with or without Alzheimer´s disease (AD). Aims. (1) to compare the discriminatory ability of the SF tasks “things in a house” and “food” versus the task “animals” among patients with the AD (n=50) and healthy subjects (n=50). (2) to compare the use of the phonemes such as “P”, “M” and “R” as an alternative and/or parallel task to the phonemes “F”, “A” and “S”. (3) to asses the combined use of both tasks with the demographic variables for the screening of AD patients and the healthy ones. Results. Both semantic and phonemic categories indicate similar results, high correlation, support the criteria validity and allow for their use in a parallel way. Among all the different roles assessed, the most successful in screening correctly 91% of the evaluated subjects is the one that includes tasks such as “things in a house”, the phonemes “A” and “S” and the age and schooling time variables. Conclusion. The parallel use of VF and PF, plus the demographic variables improve the discriminatory ability of the VF tests.

El suicidio: un reto para la prevención