Some familial and clinical characteristics of female suicidal psychiatric patients.
The study compares 72 female psychiatric patients who had a history of suicide attempt with 122 who had neither attempted nor contemplated suicide. Of these 194 women, 128 had experienced the death of their mothers before the age of 11, but the proportions of early bereaved and not early bereaved who were suicidal were similar. Not even the events which followed bereavement affected suicidal behaviour, but the suicidal patients tended to come from larger sibships. Poor quality of the marriage and, for the early bereaved only, having three or more children related significantly to suicidal behaviour. The suicidal women were significantly more often described as dependent. Suicidal behaviour was not differentiated on the endogenous/neurotic depressive dichotomy but it was significantly related to severity of depression.