Relationship between Protective and Risk Factors for Suicide in Depressed Patients

Objective: The objectives of present study are to identify the various protective factors against suicide and their relationship with risk factors like degree of hopelessness, severity of depression and suicidal ideations. Methods: The study was conducted between 1st March 2002 and 15th August 2002. It included fifty admitted patients with Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HRDS) score greater than 17 having various degrees of suicidality. Hopelessness scale and Reasons for living inventory (RLI) were applied to all the patients. The data collected was labeled and analyzed with the help of statistical package for scientific studies (SPSS) version 8. Results: Study showed that Reasons for living as a whole as well as the subscales of reasons for living inventory i.e. responsibility towards family, hope of improvement and surviving and coping beliefs have significant inverse correlation with score on Hopelessness Scale and suicidal ideations. The score on subscale religious beliefs had significant correlation only with score on hopelessness. Married individuals differed from single individuals in scoring on total reasons for living to a significant extent. The patients with past psychiatric history had significantly greater fear of suicide as compared to those without such history. The three different social groups did not differ to a significant extent in scoring on reasons for living as a whole. Conclusion: The reasons for living as a whole and some of the subscales of Reasons for Living Inventory have significant inverse relationship with suicidal risk factors showing the modulatory effect of these reasons on suicidal risk. Moreover, these reasons are not equally distributed among some of the Sociodemographic and clinical groups. (JPMA 53:275;2003). Introduction Depressive illness is considered to be the fourth leading cause of the global burden of disease (GBD) and is expected to become the second leading cause of GBD by 2020.1 Moreover, depressed people are at high risk of suicide. More than 50% of suicides are attributed to an episode of major depression.2,3 In the past it was a commonly held belief that suicide was the problem of western industrialized countries but now it is a major health problem even in developing countries.4,5 A study has reported that 5000 people attempted suicide between 1997-1999 in Pakistan.Inspite of this fact it is a poorly studied subject in our country.4,6 There is a plethora of research on identifying various risk factors for suicidal behavior throughout the world. But the factors which protect an individual from acting on suicidal urges have little been studied. This is despite the fact that the lower rates of suicides have mainly been attributed to the protective influence of religion and family.7-9 Research has shown that patients who struggle with their suicidal urges have reasons that help them in protection from acting on their suicidal thoughts. These reasons represent various sociocultural and religious factors and a scale has been designed to assess these reasons.10 Hopelessness, suicidal ideations and degree of depression are considered to be the main determinants of suicidal risk.7 The main focus of preventive efforts, against suicide and deliberate self harm, has been to address the risk factors. Augmenting the protective factors against the suicide can also be helpful in preventing the suicide and deliberate self harm. The nature of various protective factors and their relationship with the risk factors can help to identify the strategies for effective interventions in reducing suicide and deliberate self harm. The present study aims at finding the relationship between the risk factors and the protective factors mentioned above. In addition the proportion of these factors in different sociodemographic and clinical groups will also be studied.