Search

Research on suicide risk factors among psychiatric patients has developed considerably over the last 10 years. The methodological problems are numerous. Tentatives of global prediction have been unsuccessful in describing one complete and specific picture of the mentally ill suicide, whereas lawsuits against psychiatrists are frequent after patients' suicides. Through the analysis of 37 publications from 1978 to 1988 the authors review the main suicide risk factors identified among treated psychiatric patients.

Alcoholism and suicide are two Public Health problems which are linked at the epidemiological and clinical levels. Research over suicide risk factors among alcoholic subjects has developed mainly among medicalized psychiatric populations. Suicide occurs late among alcoholic patients, and affects particularly men and socially isolated subjects. The main risk factors relate to the decrease of the socio-economic status. loss of job and of income-, to the interpersonal loss--i.e. family bereavement or breach of relation, to the existence of a suicidal ideation often communicated or of suicidal antecedents, to a degradation of the physical state or the presence of some affections like gastro-duodenal ulcer. The identified factors are of little specificity. It is difficult to assess their interrelations and their respective true values. The reliable prediction of a later suicide remains presently impossible. Progress in analytic research over the alcoholic patients' suicide could result from the standardization of populations and of studied factors and from the use of multivariate analysis statistical methods.