The Relative Influence of Individual Risk Factors for Attempted Suicide

The overall objective behind “The relative influence of individual risk factors for attempted suicide in patients with bipolar I versus bipolar II‘ was to predict the different risk factors of suicide attempts among participants with bipolar I and bipolar II.

The hypothesis that the researchers of this study made was that those with bipolar I who were females or had comorbid psychological disorders or substance abuse disorders were at an increased risk of attempting suicide due to patients with bipolar I having more severe symptoms than patients with bipolar II; longer depressive episodes and rapid cycling also increased the risk of suicide among participants with bipolar I.

The main reason for conducting this study was to find out the common risk factors of suicide among patients with bipolar mood disorder as well as discover whether patients with bipolar I are at a bigger risk for suicide than patients with bipolar II.

The variables in this study consisted of two measured variables which were the number of suicide attempts reporting by each group of participants and the risk factors that contributed to these suicide attempts. The dependent variables of this study were the risk factors of suicide and the type of bipolar disorder in the participants; no independent variable was present in this study.

The measurement of these factors that led to suicide completion or attempting suicide was measured through a longitudinal study, following the patients throughout their life and keeping note of their symptoms, biological, and environmental factors that put the participant at risk for suicide. The patients were also given assessments to detect possible comorbid disorders as well as any drug use. These assessments included questionnaires administered by clinicians as well as self-reported assessments were the participant would report their family history and symptoms.

The results of this study indicated that as hypothesized gender and comorbidity of other psychological disorders do increase the risk of suicide attempts later on in life, however, the type of bipolar disorder did was not one of the risk factors in suicide attempts as first hypothesized.

A methodological issue that I had noticed in this study was that suicidal thoughts were not taken into consideration, only suicide attempts. I believe this should have been included due to the fact of not ever suicidal thought leads to an attempt, which is why suicidal thoughts are good to note in a study like this. If I had been one of the researchers studying this I would have included the rate of suicidal thoughts as well as considered following adolescents who had been diagnosed with bipolar I and bipolar II into adulthood rather than only including adults in the study.