Anger, impulsivity, social support, and suicide risk in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder

An emerging Literature suggests that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) p atients are at an increased risk for suicide. The objective of this study w as: a) to reexamine the relationship between PTSD and suicide by comparing suicide risks of persons with PTSD, to persons with anxiety disorder and to matched controls; and bf to examine the relationship between anger; impuls ivity social support and suicidality in PTSD and other anxiety disorders. F orty-six patients suffering from PTSD were compared with 42 non-PTSD anxiet y disorder patients and with 50 healthy controls on measures of anger, impu lsivity, social support, and suicide risk. Persons with PTSD had the highes t scores on the measures of suicide risk, anger, and impulsivity and the lo west scores on social support. Multivariate analysis revealed that in the P TSD group, impulsivity was positively correlated with suicide risk and ange r was not. PTSD symptoms of intrusion and avoidance were only mildly correl ated with suicide risk at the bivariate level but not at the multivariate l evel. For the PTSD and anxiety disorder groups, the greater the social supp ort, the lower the risk of suicide. For the controls, social support and im pulsivity were not related to suicide risk, whereas anger was. These findin gs suggest that persons with PTSD are at higher risk for suicide and that i n assessing suicide risk among persons with PTSD, careful attention should be paid to levels of impulsivity, which may increase suicide risk, and to s ocial support, which may reduce the risk.