High Lethality Suicide Attempts Among Chronic Schizophrenia Patients

This study assessed the personal & clinical features of a sample of patients with schizophrenia who had made highly lethal suicide attempts. 18 of 39 subjects had made a high lethality suicide attempt in the 6-month period before assessment while the others had not engaged in any suicidal behaviour. Diagnoses & suicidal intent were evaluated using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview. Multivariate analyses explained 61% of the variance of the dependent variable (suicide versus nonsuicidal group). Patients with a history of a highly lethal suicide attempt were 24 times less likely to report loss of skills in demanding jobs & were 21 times more likely to report strong feelings of fear in the last 2 weeks than patients without a history of suicide attempts. (36 refs.)