Personality disorders among suicide attempters

Abstract: Attempted suicide is a common clinical problem in general hospitals. Personality disorders are at increased risk for suicide. There are few case-control studies on attempted suicide in India. The aim of the study was to find out the prevalence of Personality Disorders in survivors following their first suicide attempts. 100 consecutive cases of first suicide attempters (Group-I) were compared with an equal number of randomly selected controls (Group-II), matched for age and sex. Risk-Rescue rating was applied in suicide attempters to know the medical seriousness of the suicide attempt. Structured clinical interview (MINI Plus) and semi-structured clinical interview (IPDE) were used for Personality diagnosis. The two groups were compared using appropriate statistical measures.The overall medical seriousness of the suicide attempt was of moderate lethality (low risk, high rescue group). Group-I had higher personality disorders (52% v 25%) compared to group-II. The difference was found to be statistically significant with an Odds ratio of 3.43 of having personality disorder and suicide attempt. The most common cluster of personality disorder was cluster-B followed by cluster A and cluster-C. Emotionally unstable-impulsive type, schizoid, paranoid and anankastic personality disorders were most frequent among the suicide attempters. Individuals who made first suicide attempt had high prevalence of personality disorders in comparison to the controls.