Explained factors of suicide attempts in major depression

The aim of this study is to identify risk factors for suicide attempts including bipolarity.

The paper presents the most recent data on suicide attempts and depression with or without hypomanic features from three French "Bipolact", studies including 2249 patients with recurrent or resistant depression. Hypomania and BP-II disorder were defined by a score of 10 or more on the Hypomania Checklist-20. Attempters and non-attempters were compared, and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed on all the significant variables obtained in univariate tests.

Rates of suicide attempts and of a family history of suicide were higher in BP-II disorder. Suicide attempts were best explained by a family history of suicide and mood disorders, recurrence of depression, the "irritable-risk-taking" dimension of hypomania, substance abuse, and need of psychiatric treatment.

The study does not deal with DSM-IV BP-II disorder.

Clinicians need to be familiarized with these risk factors.