Increased suicidality in depression: group or subgroup characteristic?
A lifetime history of depressive episodes and suicide attempts was ascertained from 172 depressed patients admitted to a psychiatric inpatient service. Fifty-five of these patients had made at least one suicide attempt. The correlation of depressive episodes and the total number of suicide attempts for this group was close to zero. However, when the data were converted into rate measures (number of episodes or attempts per year), the correlations were very high and significant. It appears that approximately one-third of severely depressed, hospitalized patients have a history of suicide attempts and, once a suicide attempt has occurred, the patient is at high risk for more suicide attempts if future depressions occur. Within the group of depressives with a history of suicide attempt, the risk of suicidal behavior is evenly distributed. No evidence in favor of a "hypervulnerable" subgroup was found.
van Praag
H M
HM
Department of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY 10461.
Plutchik
R
R
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States