|
 |
|
      |
|
|
|
 Research & Giving News Article  Findings suggest approaches that target each sex could help to prevent suicide By Michael F. Grunebaum, M.D.  It is more common than homicide, causing about 30,000 premature deaths each year in the United States. The vast majority of suicides are associated with psychiatric illness, most commonly depression.Suicidal behavior tends to differ between males and females. Women make more suicide attempts, but men’s attempts are more often fatal. More than half of all suicide deaths occur in a first suicide attempt. So identifying who is at greatest risk for a suicide attempt as early in treatment as possible may help to prevent suicides. In an effort to improve understanding of risk factors for suicidal behavior, we conducted a two-year study of 314 persons suffering from depression or bipolar disorder. Our goal was to study how factors which increase the risk for suicide attempts are different for men versus women. The study was conducted in the Division of Neuroscience Research Clinic, Columbia University Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City. During the two-year study, results from which were published in the January issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, we found that 17 percent of the patients attempted or committed suicide. In men, family history of suicidal acts, past drug use, cigarette smoking, borderline personality disorder, and early parental separation each more than tripled the risk of future suicidal acts. For women, each past suicide attempt increased future risk threefold. Suicidal ideation, seriousness of past attempts, hostility, subjective depressive symptoms, fewer reasons for living, borderline personality disorder, and cigarette smoking also increased the risk of future suicidal acts for women, but not to the same degree as a past attempt. The results highlight some important facts. As with what we found with the women in this study, other research has shown that people who have made a past suicide attempt are at highest risk for future attempts. As with men in this study, other research has shown that suicidal behavior is likely to have genetic components since it tends to cluster in families. Having borderline personality disorder in addition to a mood disorder increased the risk of suicidal acts for both men and women in this study, as did cigarette smoking. The role of cigarette smoking requires further research, but may involve its effects on brain chemicals involved in the biology of mood disorders. Reasons for living had a stronger effect among women, possibly related to aspects of having children. Early parental separation had a stronger effect among men, raising intriguing questions about males’ ability to form attachments to caregivers. Hostile-aggressive traits and substance abuse are other factors that prior research has found raise the risk of suicidal behavior. This study raises questions for further research on how suicide risk factors may differ between males and females. Ultimately, understanding these factors may allow psychiatrists to provide more targeted interventions for men and women to prevent suicide. In the meantime, for persons at risk for suicide, their families and healthcare providers, it highlights the necessity of close follow-up and effective treatment of mood disorders, borderline personality traits and substance abuse with appropriate combinations of medication and/or counseling. The Division of Neuroscience, Columbia University Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric Institute is currently enrolling patients in additional studies of mood disorders and suicidal behavior Michael Grunebaum, M.D., an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons (P&S) and the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), is supported by NARSAD: The Mental Health Research Association and the National Institute of Mental Health. J. John Mann, M.D., Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and translational neuroscience at P&S and chief of neuroscience at NYSPI, was senior author on the paper cited above and is a member of NARSAD’s Scientific Council. |
Media Contact
Upcoming NARSAD Events
Latest News from NARSAD
Spotlight
|
|
For the Media