Received 21 April 2020, Revised 12 June 2020, Accepted 9 August 2020, Available online 14 August 2020.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032720326173
Highlights
Among depressed patients, women are more likely to attempt suicide multiple times.•
Intensive suicidal behaviour is associated with bipolar disorder and related features•
Repeated suicide attempts and mood-switching with ADs are frequently associated
Abstract
Background
Many risk factors for suicidal behavior have been identified. Much less has been done to associate risk factors with recurrence of suicidal behavior.
Methods
We compared prevalence of 30 potential risk factors among 8496 depressive patient-subjects from the BRIDGE consortium with no (NSA, n=6267), one (1SA, n=1123), or repeated (≥2) suicide attempts (RSA, n=1106).
Results
Prevalence of most factors ranked: RSA ≥ 1SA > NSA, with a notable opposite trend for the diagnosis of type II bipolar disorder (BD). Factors independently and significantly more present among RSA than 1SA subjects were: borderline personality, substance abuse, mood-switching with antidepressant treatment, female sex, and unsatisfactory response to antidepressant treatment. There also were notably strong associations of RSA with type I or probable BD and associated factors, including family history of BD, young onset, mixed and psychotic features.
Limitations
Potential effects of treatment on risk of suicidal acts could not be evaluated adequately, as well as associations between levels of suicidal behavior and eventual death by suicide.
Conclusions
In a large cohort of depressive patients, there were significant associations not only with suicidal behavior generally, but also with the intensity of suicide attempts.
Key words
Suicide attempts
Bipolar disorder
Depressive episode