Delusions and suicidality

Objective: Delusions have been considered a risk factor for suicidal behavi or. To determine whether specific delusion types are related to suicidal be haviors, the authors compared the clinical characteristics of patients with mood disorders and schizophrenia who did and did not have a history of sui cide attempts. Method: After admission for inpatient or outpatient psychiatric treatment, 429 patients (ages 14-72 years; 47.1% male: and 73.0% Caucasian) were asses sed with a structured clinical interview that generated axis I and II diagn oses. In addition, their psychiatric symptoms, history of suicide attempts, and overall functioning were rated. Results: Data for three diagnostic subgroups (223 patients with major depre ssion, 150 with schizophrenia, and 56 with bipolar disorder) were analyzed separately. Multivariate analyses did not find evidence of a relationship b etween delusions and history of suicidal ideation or suicide attempts in an y of the diagnostic groups. Conclusions: This study did not find evidence that the presence of delusion s distinguished persons with or without a history of suicide attempt.