Specific characteristics of suicide attempts in patients with schizophrenia in Turkey

Suicide attempt is a universally observed human behavior related to bio-psychological, social and cultural factors. While some studies have suggested that specific demographic/cultural and clinical variables are associated with suicide attempts in schizophrenia, these associations are often inconsistent.

The aim of this study was to investigate the possible association between socio-demographic and clinical variables and suicidal behavior in a sample of patients diagnosed as having schizophrenia in Turkey.

Three hundred patients with a SCID-I diagnosis of schizophrenia were studied. The sample was subdivided into two groups based on the presence or absence of lifetime suicide attempts. The main demographic and clinical variables retrospectively collected were analyzed and compared between the two groups.

The results of present study revealed that the subjects who had and had not attempted suicide did not differ with respect to demographic variables. The suicide attempters tend to have younger age at onset of disorder, longer duration of psychosis, more hospitalizations, are more likely to have lifetime major depressive episodes, and a significantly higher rate of alcohol abuse or dependence than patients without a lifetime history of suicide attempts.

Consistent with the results of previous studies, it has been found that demographic variables may be less valuable predictors of suicidal behavior than clinical variables. These results lead to the idea that socio-cultural variations may not be a critical determinant for suicide attempt among patients with schizophrenia.