[40 years in-patient suicide research of the working group "Suicidality and the psychiatric hospital"].

OBJECTIVE: To give an retrospective overview according to the so-called in-patient suicide especially in German psychiatric hospitals.
METHOD: Summary of results of the working group "Suicidality and the psychiatric hospital" during the last four decades in Germany.
RESULTS: First, it could be shown that there was a real increase of in-patient suicides during the 70(th) and 80(th) years. Two other results are important 1) an impressive decrease of suicide rates in the two last decades and 2) the observation of a change from the new high-risk group "young schizophrenic patients" back to the traditional suicide risk group of depressed patients. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.