June 14 (UPI) -- University of Chicago researchers suggest the quality of psychiatric treatment should be more important than the number of inpatient beds in suicide prevention.
The study by the University of Chicago in collaboration with Columbia University, rebuts a previous study that stated the overall decline in the number of inpatient psychiatric beds available in the United States between 1998 and 2013 is linked to the increase in the suicide rates.
"If simply increasing hospital beds reduced suicides, that would be wonderful if it were true," Robert Gibbons, professor in the Departments of Medicine & Public Health Sciences at the University of Chicago, said in a press release. "But by doing a naive statistical analysis, you're taking the focus away from other things that ultimately will reduce risk of suicide, and you're drawing attention to what you think is a simple fix that will have no effect whatsoever."
The previous study compared two sets of data and showed an inverse association between suicide rates and the number of beds in psychiatric inpatient units, and that as the number of beds declined, suicide rates increased.
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The new study, published June 14 in JAMA Psychiatry, used a regression model to break down suicide rates within each state during the same time period and found no significant link between suicide rates and the number of beds.
"You have to provide better treatment," Gibbons said. "You have to identify people at risk, measure the magnitude of that risk, and provide evidence-based treatment for people with previously unidentified and untreated depression. It's really about the quality of treatment, not simply the quantity of psychiatric hospital beds."
Researchers recommend healthcare policy makers should focus on how existing psychiatric beds are used instead of the number and that decreased suicide risk is linked to proper diagnosis and treatment of depression.
