An Empirically Based Model of Suicide Risk Assessment for Patients With Affective Disorder (IN: Suicide and Clinical Practice, ed. by D Jacobs)

The authors’ empirical studies of suicide risk prediction among patients with major affective disorders rest on a number of assumptions about the phenomenology of suicidal behaviour. These assumptions are: 1. nonfatal attempters and fatal suicides are drawn from qualitatively different clinical populations; 2. suicide risk predictors vary as a function of the major psychiatric disorder implicated; and 3. clinical characteristics associated with risk of imminent & later suicide differ. (70 refs.)