Dimensions of Psychopathy in Relation to Suicidal and Self-Injurious Behavior

This study used data on 810 civil psychiatric patients from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Project to examine the relationships between scores on the 4 dimensions of the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version & suicide attempts & nonsuicidal self-injurious behaviour. Results indicate only the antisocial dimension of psychopathy is associated with suicide attempts. With regard to nonsuicidal self-injurious behaviour, an interaction was found such that, among African Americans, nonsuicidal self-injurious behaviour was more prevalent at higher levels of antisociality. Present findings refine results from studies using the 2-factor model & have important implications for the assessment of suicide risk. (27 refs.)