Intent & Lethality of Suicide Attempts Among Female Borderline Inpatients

Data on self-destructive behavior is reported for 40 female borderline inpatients. Data was assessed in relation to measures of intent, lethality of attempts & empirically derived risk. Variation in seriousness of attempts was accounted for by age, number of attempts, presence of an eating disorder, psychotic features & family history with anxiety disorders as a mitigating factor. Concomitant histrionic & antisocial features were also differentially predictive of the empirically derived risk.