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Psychosocial and psychiatric risk factors for suicide. Case-control psychological autopsy study
A T Cheng1, T H Chen, C C Chen
1Division of Epidemiology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. bmandrew@ccvax.sinica.edu.tw
Background:
Few studies of suicide have simultaneously examined the individual and combined effects of psychosocial and psychiatric risk factors.
Aims:
To do so in a representative sample of suicides.
Method:
A case-control psychological autopsy was conducted among 113 consecutive suicides and 226 living controls matched for age, gender, ethnicity and area of residence in Taiwan.
Results:
Five major risk factors (loss event, suicidal behaviour in first-degree relatives, ICD-10 major depressive episode, emotionally unstable personality disorder and substance dependence) were found to have independent effects on suicide from multivariate conditional logistic regression analysis.
Conclusions:
Effective intervention and management for loss event and major depressive episode among emotionally unstable subjects with a family tendency of suicidal behaviour, frequently also comorbid with alcohol or other substance dependence, may prove to be most effective for suicide prevention in different populations.