Personality traits in attempted and completed suicide

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Personality Research

Background:

• The Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP) are widely used, but their factor structure in suicide attempters remains uninvestigated.
• Limited research exists on personality traits in individuals who complete suicide.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the factor structure of the KSP in suicide attempters.
• To explore if the KSP factor structure relates to gender, suicide attempt method, or suicide completion.

Main Methods:

• Principal component analysis and orthogonal varimax rotation were used to analyze KSP data from 165 suicide attempters.
• Two-way ANOVAs examined the influence of gender, violent vs. nonviolent attempt methods, and suicide completion on personality factors.

Main Results:

• A four-factor solution emerged: Neuroticism, Nonconformity, Psychoticism, and Extraversion.
• Men who later completed suicide reported higher Extraversion compared to male survivors.

Conclusions:

• The KSP factor structure in suicide attempters aligns with findings in the general population, suggesting no unique personality structure for this group.
• Observed personality differences between suicide completers and survivors indicate potentially distinct characteristics between these groups.