Temperament and Character of High Suicide Risk Group Among Psychiatric Patients

The purpose of this study was to classify patients with suicidal tendencies into suicide attempts (SA), suicidal ideation (SI), and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and to identify differences in temperaments and characters of the groups. It also aimed to identify difference between the groups and non-suicidal tendencies.

Using psychiatric diagnostic data of 195 patients, temperaments and characters were measured with the Temperament and Character Inventory, and the level of depression was measured with the Beck Depression Inventory. The subjects were classified into SA, SI, NSSI, psychiatric patients without suicidal tendencies (PP), and non-patient (Normal) groups, and multivariate analysis of variance and multinomial logistic regression were conducted.

The NSSI group had higher novelty seeking compared to the SI group, while having higher harm avoidance, lower persistence, and lower self-directedness compared to the SA group. Furthermore, low persistence was a better predictor for the SA group between SA and NSSI groups, and low novelty seeking was found to be a better predictor for the SI group between the SI and NSSI groups.

As a result, the group differences in temperaments and characters were found, which would be useful to identify patients with suicidal tendencies and provide appropriate interventions tailored to the temperaments and characters of each group.