Personality differences in early versus late suicide attempters

Suicidality is an individual behaviour caused by a complex framework of internal and external factors. The predictive values of personality traits for a suicide attempt have been demonstrated, especially in conjunction with Cloninger's TCI and impulsivity. Two issues remain unsolved, namely whether these traits alter over time after a suicide attempt, and how they may be influenced by depressive symptoms.

We studied two patient cohorts: one sample of 81 patients after a suicide attempt no longer than 3 months previously (SA early) and another sample of 32 patients whose attempt had taken place more than 6 months previously (SA late). We carried out structured interviews with these subjects addressing diagnosis (MINI), suicidality (Scale for suicide ideation), depression (HAMD-17), temperament and character inventory (TCI), and impulsivity (BIS-10). Data analysis was done using SPSS 16.0.

Our two groups did not differ significantly in sociodemographics or suicidality. However, patients in the SA early group were significantly more depressed (p < 0.001), and scored lower in reward dependence (p < 0.001) and persistence (p = 0.005) but higher in harm avoidance (p < 0.001); they did not differ significantly in impulsivity (p < 0.01). Reward dependence, persistence, and harm avoidance remained significantly different between the two groups after controlling for depressive symptoms.

Our findings suggest that some personality traits vary after a suicide attempt. Further investigations are necessary to verify our results, ideally in longitudinal studies with larger, carefully-described cohorts. It would be also clinically important to investigate the influence of therapeutic strategies on the variability of personality traits and their impact on suicidal behavior.