Medically serious versus non-serious suicide attempts: relationships of lethality and intent to clinical and interpersonal characteristics.

BACKGROUND: The study of near-fatal suicide attempts may provide insight into the minds of suicidal subjects. The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship of intent and lethality in medically serious and medically non-serious suicide attempts and to examine relationship of specific psychological and clinical variables with the subjective and objective components of suicide intent.

METHODS: The study group included 102 participants, 35 consecutive subjects hospitalized for a medically serious suicide attempt and 67 subjects who presented to the same tertiary medical center after a medically non-serious suicide attempt. All were interviewed with the SCID-I and completed the Suicide Intent Scale (SIS), the Lethality Rating Scale, and instruments measuring mental pain and communication difficulties.

RESULTS: Patients who made medically serious suicide attempts had higher total SIS score and higher objective and subjective subscale scores. The objective component of the SIS was highly correlated with the lethality of the suicide attempt and communication difficulties; the subjective component was associated with mental pain variables. The interaction of mental pain and communication difficulties was predictive of the severity of the objective suicide intent.

LIMITATIONS: Relatively small number of patients with medically serious suicide attempt and the relatively large number of questionnaires which may to some extent have diminished informant reliability.

CONCLUSIONS: Suicidal individuals with depression and hopelessness who cannot signal their pain to others are at high risk of committing a medically serious suicide attempts.