MCMI-III Scores on Substance Abusers With and Without Histories of Suicide Attempts

Sixty-eight patients with a history of suicide attempt were compared to 340 patients without a history of suicide attempt using the MCMI-III, a frequently used test for measuring personality disorders. Patients with a suicide attempt history scored higher on Schizoid, Avoidant, Depression, Dependent, Passive-Aggressive (Negativistic), Self-Defeating, and Paranoid and significantly lower on Histrionic and Compulsive and scored higher on all clinical syndrome scales except for Drug Dependence and Delusional Disorder. Logistic regression correctly predicted the no-suicide-history group with 97% accuracy, but only accurately predicted 16% of the patients with a suicide attempt history. A discriminant function analysis correctly predicted 90% of the patients with a suicidal attempt history and 63% of the patients with no history of suicide attempt. Results suggest that MCMI-III scores may be able to detect patients with a history of suicide attempt, using multivariate statistics.