Loading...
Clinicians hunger for additional ways to improve their ability to predict suicide in their patients. Demographic and clinical characteristics, used in most standardized assessments for judging suicide risk, are statistically predictive of subsequent suicidal behaviors, but they are less accurate in forecasting suicidal behavior in individual circumstances. Investigators in Scotland studied whether feelings of defeat and entrapment (i.e., inability to escape from defeating circumstances) might contribute to suicidal behavior beyond conventional clinical predictors.
Seventy patients seen in a hospital's psychiatric consultation after an initial medically serious suicide attempt (59% female; mean age, 36 years; 93% by overdose) were assessed us…