Centre for Suicide Research Heading

Section navigation

Section maincontentent

Centre for Suicide Research | Monitoring deliberate self harm |

 

The Oxford Monitoring System for Attempted Suicide

The Monitoring System was established in 1976. It enables information to be collected on patients presenting to the general hospital in Oxford (covering a population of approximately 450,000) following deliberate self-harm, including non-admitted as well as admitted patients, and also those not assessed by the psychiatric service as well as those who are assessed. This recording system is unique in the UK (and indeed in Europe) in terms of the completeness of data obtained and its duration. For each patient, information is collected on a range of sociodemographic and clinical variables, most of which are relevant to suicide risk and repetition of deliberate self-harm (DSH). The database currently includes data on over 31,000 episodes carried out by over 19,000 individuals. Episodes and persons are linked so that it is easy to examine repetition of DSH over varying time periods. Comparison with data collected elsewhere in the UK has shown that the patterns and trends of DSH in Oxford are representative of those in other centres (Platt et al, 1988).

The Centre for Suicide Research is co-ordinating a national collaboration of research centres which collect data on self harm for a Multicentre Monitoring Project.

Data from the Oxford Monitoring System also contributed to the WHO:EURO Multicentre Study of Suicidal Behaviour.

Section rightcontent

Publications arising from the work of the Monitoring System

Download pdf of our latest Annual Report

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC to view the pdf file

 

 


blue footer image