High-lethality of suicide attempts associated with platelet to lymphocyte ratio and mean platelet volume in psychiatric inpatient setting

Objectives: A wide range of potential psychosocial, biological, genetic and environmental factors interact with each other in determining suicidal behaviors. The aim of this study was to evaluate several biological parameters referred to the complete blood count values in 259 suicide attempters (SA) and 164 non-suicide attempters (control group), according to the lethality of suicidal behavior.Methods: After attempting suicide, subjects were admitted to the emergency ward of the IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino and later to the section of Psychiatry from 1st August 2013 to 31st July 2018. Socio-demographic and clinical characteristics as well as blood cell were collected.Results: Individuals with high-lethality suicide attempts had a higher number of neutrophil, mean platelet volume, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-lymphocyte ratio, and lower number of lymphocyte relative to both those with low-lethality suicide attempts and control group. Afer regression analysis, only the mean platelet volume and platelet to lymphocyte ratio resulted associated with high-lethality suicide attempt (HLSA).Conclusions: Our findings provide a potential and useful peripheral biological marker able to help clinicians in understanding the complex phenomenon of suicide. However, further studies are needed to confirm the present findings.