In 2009, 8 Romanians committed suicide every day. Suicide risk assessment and management remains difficult for psychiatrists worldwide and requires further study and a better implementation of prevention strategies.

To identify the relationship between demographic and clinical data in a sample of psychiatric patients admitted after a suicideattempt and voluntary self-harm (VSH-SA) to our hospital between 2008 and 2010.

The purpose of this study is to determine which factors, if any, influence suicidal behavior.

A retrospective review of patients aged 10–84 with VSH-SA (coded by ICD-10), admitted during a three year period. The cases were sorted by age, gender, year of admission, seasonal pattern, mechanism of injury and associated psychiatric pathology. The mechanisms of injury were both violent and non-violent.

59% of cases were female and 41% male, 18% under the age of 18 (82% female). 31,5% were in the 18-29 years of age interval. A large difference between the year 2008 (16 cases) and 2009 (51 cases) was registered in the male group. Most cases were registered during spring (34%). Drug and substance ingestion was the most common method. Violent methods were used by 25% of men and only 9,5% of women. The most frequent diagnosis was major depression.

Our results show that a large number of VSH-SA were committed by young, active members of the population and a significant number of children was noticed. These findings emphasize the importance of identifying suicide risk factors and developing prevention strategies.