Prediction of Suicide

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=160 BGCOLOR="#333333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="03cdedc2ddualp.png"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dr. Wade Silverman, Ph.D"><U><B>Dr. Wade Silverman, Ph.D</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id8.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U><B>Contact Us</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id147.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="FAQs"><U><B>FAQs</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id16.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="About Dr. Silverman"><U><B>About Dr. Silverman</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id146.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Great links"><U><B>Great links</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id3.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Mind Reader© archive"><U><B>The Mind Reader© archive</B></U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="03d64643.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#666633" FACE="Times New Roman" ><B>Dr. Wade Silverman, Ph.D</B></FONT>    |     <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000BF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dr. Wade Silverman, Ph.D"><U>home</U></A></FONT></div> <div>                                                   </div> <div> Prediction of Suicide</div> <bR> <div> One of the more frequent causes of litigation against mental health professionals is the loss of a patient by suicide. Since the base rate of actual suicide cases are rare in our population, prediction has been problematic.</div> <div> Recently, the <I>Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology</I> published an article by the esteemed psychologist A. T. Beck and colleagues that examined risk factors for suicide. What makes this study so valuable is that it included over 600 outpatients and that it was prospective. That is, the authors used data to predict suicide as opposed to looking at suicide cases to ascertain what they had in common.</div> <div> Those factors directly related to suicide included suicidal ideation (thoughts of suicide), major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, previous psychiatric hospitalization, previous suicide attempts, increasing age, and unemployment. Other predictors included hopelessness, previous use of psychiatric medication, severity of depression, family history of suicide, and personality disorders (Axis II).</div> <div> These findings suggest the importance of understanding suicide as a consequence of a multiplicity of risk factors. Seldom is self-inflicted injury or death due to a single "cause". As you can see from the variables above, there are certain factors that are pre-conditions. Also, there are situational factors such as unemployment, or access to weapons that may relate to suicide. </div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>