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Suicide attempters' reaction to survival as a risk factor for eventual suicide
Gregg Henriques1, Amy Wenzel, Gregory K Brown
1Department of Psychology, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA.
Objective:
The authors' goal was to evaluate whether suicide attempters' reaction to surviving their attempt predicted eventual suicide.
Method:
Three hundred ninety-three suicide attempters were categorized on the basis of their reaction to having survived their attempt (i.e., glad to be alive, ambivalent, wished they were dead) and were followed for 5 to 10 years to determine whether they completed suicide.
Results:
A survival analysis found that subjects who said that they wished they had died after a suicide attempt were 2.5 times more likely to commit suicide eventually than those who were glad they survived and those who were ambivalent about the attempt.
Conclusions:
Suicide attempters' reaction to surviving is an important clinical variable that is easily assessed in evaluations that occur following a suicide attempt.
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