TY - JOUR PY - 2016// TI - Personality differences in early versus late suicide attempters JO - BMC psychiatry A1 - Lewitzka, Ute A1 - Denzin, Sebastian A1 - Sauer, Cathrin A1 - Bauer, Michael A1 - Jabs, Burkhard SP - e282 EP - e282 VL - 16 IS - N2 - BACKGROUND: Suicidality is an individual behaviour caused by a complex framework of internal and external factors. The predictive values of personality traits for a suicide attempt have been demonstrated, especially in conjunction with Cloninger's TCI and impulsivity. Two issues remain unsolved, namely whether these traits alter over time after a suicide attempt, and how they may be influenced by depressive symptoms.

METHODS: We studied two patient cohorts: one sample of 81 patients after a suicide attempt no longer than 3 months previously (SA early) and another sample of 32 patients whose attempt had taken place more than 6 months previously (SA late). We carried out structured interviews with these subjects addressing diagnosis (MINI), suicidality (Scale for suicide ideation), depression (HAMD-17), temperament and character inventory (TCI), and impulsivity (BIS-10). Data analysis was done using SPSS 16.0.

RESULTS: Our two groups did not differ significantly in sociodemographics or suicidality. However, patients in the SA early group were significantly more depressed (p < 0.001), and scored lower in reward dependence (p < 0.001) and persistence (p = 0.005) but higher in harm avoidance (p < 0.001); they did not differ significantly in impulsivity (p < 0.01). Reward dependence, persistence, and harm avoidance remained significantly different between the two groups after controlling for depressive symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that some personality traits vary after a suicide attempt. Further investigations are necessary to verify our results, ideally in longitudinal studies with larger, carefully-described cohorts. It would be also clinically important to investigate the influence of therapeutic strategies on the variability of personality traits and their impact on suicidal behavior.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1471-244X UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12888-016-0991-6 ID - ref1 ER -