Suicide risk and associated demographic and clinical correlates among primary care patients with recent drug use

ABSTRACTBackground: There is an increased need to prepare primary care clinicians to effectively gauge the risk of suicidal behavior occurring within primary care patients who may abuse drugs, especially those served in safety-net settings. Objectives: The objectives of this paper were to explore suicide risk in a population of individuals endorsing recent drug use, and to describe patient demographic, medical, psychiatric, social, and substance use characteristics across different levels of suicide risk. Methods: A total of 867 primary care patients with reported drug use in the previous 90 days were studied. Based upon their responses to two Addiction Severity Index questions, four suicide risk categories were constructed: (1) low risk; (2) moderate-low (suicidal ideation in the past 30 days); (3) moderate-high (history of a lifetime suicide attempt); and (4) high risk (history of a lifetime suicide attempt and suicidal ideation in the past 30 days). The association between suicide risk groups and demog...