Autobiographical Memory Retrieval and Problem-Solving Deficits of Iranian Depressed Patients Attempting Suicide

The underlying hypothosis of this study was suicide attempters tend to retrieve overgeneral autobiographical memories, with a considerable latency. 2 cognitive measures were used to assess 20 Iranian patients who had attempted suicide & who met DSM-IV criteria for depression. Results showed suicide attempters produced more overgeneral memories & responded more slowly to positive than negative cue words compared to controls. In the problem-solving task, depressed patients evidenced less effective strategies, fewer & more irrelevant means, & took longer to respond to the task than the matched controls. (24 refs.) JA