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SANDRA PFANDER, PSYD
Department of Pediatrics St Luke's Hospital 700 Cooper St Saginaw, MI 48602 Department of Pediatrics and Human Development College of Human Medicine Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1317

ELIZABETH A. SEAGULL, PHD
Department of Pediatrics and Human Development College of Human Medicine Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1317

Am J Dis Child. 1992;146(8):898-900.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Sir.—Children and adolescents who attempt suicide have a significantly elevated risk of later death due to suicide.^1,2 Because children and adolescents are poor judges of the lethality of their behavior, the medical seriousness of the attempt is not a useful criterion for distinguishing between those patients who need inpatient psychiatric treatment and those who can safely be treated as outpatients. Therefore, current recommendations indicate that all children and adolescents who attempt suicide should be admitted to a pediatric/adolescent inpatient service for medical care and evaluation.^3,4 In large medical centers, professionals qualified to assess such patients are readily available; however, this is often not true in smaller hospitals.

One solution to the problem of availability of psychologic consultation for pediatric patients has been for hospitals to contract for the services of a pediatric psychologist on a part-time basis. The present retrospective study was undertaken using records from a . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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