Citation

Fang L, Heisel MJ, Duberstein PR, Zhang J. J. Nerv. Ment. Dis. 2012; 200(7): 598-602.

Affiliation

*Zhejiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China; †Shandong University Center for Suicide Prevention Research, Jinan, Shandong, China; ‡Departments of Psychiatry and of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; §Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Rochester, New York; and ∥Department of Sociology, State University of New York College at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

10.1097/NMD.0b013e31825bfb53

PMID

22759937

Abstract

Neuroticism and extraversion are potentially important markers of personality vulnerability to suicide. Whereas previous studies have examined these traits independently, we examined their combined effects. Data were collected from family members and/or friends of individuals 18 years or older who died by suicide (n = 64) in rural China and from age-, sex-, and geographically matched controls (n = 64). Personality was assessed with the NEO-Five Factor Inventory. Individuals with a personality style characterized by high neuroticism and low extraversion were at 3.07 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.44-6.55) times greater risk for suicide than were individuals without this personality style; in contrast, a style characterized by low neuroticism and high extraversion conferred decreased suicide risk (odds ratio, 0.41; 95% CI, 1.44-6.55). We conclude that it may be clinically inadequate to conceptualize neuroticism, by itself, as a risk marker for suicide. However, when the negative affect characteristic of neuroticism is combined with the joylessness, pessimism, and hopelessness characteristic of low extraversion, risk for suicide is elevated.

Language: en