Relation of Antisocial and Psychopathic Traits to Suicide-Related Behavior Among Offenders

This study tested whether negative emotionality, low constraint, & substance use problems mediated any relationship between antisocial personality disorder & psychopathy on the one hand & suicide-related behaviour & ideation on the other. 682 male offenders were studied. Antisocial personality disorder & the impulsivity/lifestyle features of psychopathy weakly predicted suicide-related behaviours. High negative emotionality & low constraint, but not substance use, mediated the relation between antisocial personality disorder & suicide-related behaviour. Impulsivity/lifestyle features of psychopathy retained an independent predictive effect. Self-report psychopathy measures added unique predictive variance to the Psychopathy Checklist – Revised. Implications for suicide risk assessment & prevention are discussed. (73 refs.) JA