Parasuicide, anhedonia, and depression

Previous research has shown that anhedonia characterizes suicide attempters . The present study aimed to replicate this finding using the level of depr ession as a control. Seventy-three depressed parasuicides. 30 nondepressed parasuicides, and 104 matched controls were assessed on the Revised Physica l Anhedonia Scale (PAS). Consistent with previous studies, depressed parasu icides were significantly more anhedonic than controls, but nondepressed pa rasuicides were not significantly more anhedonic than controls. Moreover, m ultiple linear regression analysis showed that the PAS score explained a ne gligible part of the variance in the distinction between parasuicides and c ontrols. Anhedonia in parasuicides constitutes a depressive feature and not a temperamental trait. Copyright (C) 2000 by W.B. Saunders Company.