Attempted Suicide: Correlates of Increasing Medical Lethality

Abstract

Ratings of medical lethality of 145 suicide attempts with coma-producing drugs were unrelated to the personal characteristics of the suicide attempter, the precipitating circumstances, and most of the circumstances of the suicidal act. The ratings of medical lethality did, however, appear to have some validity. As the suicide attempter might incorrectly predict the lethality of his planned suicide attempt, his self-report of intent may be more useful for classification of his behavior than the actual lethality of his suicidal action. It was not possible to form reasonable hypotheses about the characteristics of completers of suicide from the characteristics of three groups of attempters of suicide of differing medical lethality.