Therapy Factors in Treating Severely ill Psychiatric Patients

The therapeutic factors influencing suicide during out-patient treatment in severely ill, discharged psychiatric inpatients were studied. A subsample of 25 suicide & 27 control patients were all treated by psychiatrists at the time of their suicide or at a corresponding point of time. No significant psychosocial or clinical pre-discharge differences were identified between the 2 groups. On the whole, the contribution of the therapy factors was modest, explaining only 26% of the group variance.