PHYSIOLOGICAL REACTIONS TO A SUICIDE FILM - SUICIDE ATTEMPTERS, SUICIDE IDEATORS, AND NONSUICIDAL PATIENTS

A film about two teenagers who commit suicide was shown to three group s of psychiatric inpatients: 17 who had attempted suicide, 20 who had expressed suicidal thoughts, and 10 who were not suicidal. Anxiety bef ore and after the film was evaluated with psychometric (anxiety rating scale) and physiological tools (heart and respiration rate, blood pre ssure, electromyogram). Values noted before and after screening, and t he degree of change in these values, were compared. In addition, psych omotor agitation was rated at several points during the film. Most res ults were negative. The suicide attempters had significantly lower pos tscreening heart rates and a significantly lesser change in heart and respiration rates than the other two groups. The suicide attempters re vealed an increase in psychomotor agitation until the discovery of the suicide and a decrease thereafter, whereas the agitation of the nonsu icidal patients continued to increase from the start to the end of the film. The study suggests that on some parameters, suicide attempters reveal less anxiety than nonsuicidal psychiatric patients following ex posure to a simulated suicide. The reaction of suicide ideators falls somewhere between the two groups.