Using a battery of tests to predict suicide in a long-term hospital: a quantitative analysis

Examined the Wechsler-Bellevue, Rorschach, TAT and Word Association Tests of 40 Patients for quantitative indications of suicide potential. Ten of these patients had completed suicide, 10 "serious" attempts, 10 "mild" attempts and 10 had never made a suicide attempt. In addition to a study of the quantification of major aspects of the tests, various published hypotheses also were examined. No quantitative aspect of the data differentiated all four groups. When the "completed" and "serious" attempters were compared to the "mild" and "no" attempters, the more lethal patients were found to give more movement responses and more total responses. Those who completed suicide also had a larger difference than others between their Verbal and Performance IQs. Of the published hypotheses, only the Roth & Blatt and Sapolsky hypotheses received significant support.