A Comparison of Anxiety, Depression and Life Events between Suicidal Ideators and Suicide Attempters

To thwart the suicidal behavior, it is crucial to understand the psychopathology and negative life events associated with suicidal ideators and suicide attempters. The present study aimed to compare anxiety, depression and life events between suicidal ideators and attempters. This was a cross sectional hospital based research conducted at the Department of Psychiatry, in SRM Medical College, Hospital & Research Centre, Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu and purposive sampling method was used. The sample consists of 30 suicidal ideators and 30 suicide attempters diagnosed as per ICD-10 fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Subsequently, Modified Scale for Suicidal Ideation, Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and Social Readjustment Rating Scale were administered to both the groups. The analysis included descriptive statistics, Mann Whitney U test and Spearman Rank Order Correlation using SPSS version 16.0. Results showed that Anxiety was significantly higher in Suicidal ideators than in attempters. Furthermore, we found that there was a strong positive correlation between Anxiety and Depression in Suicide Attempters. Similarly, there was a significant positive correlation between Life Events and Depression in Suicide Attempters. The current study also observed a positive correlation between Anxiety and Life Events in Suicidal ideators.