ABSTRACT
Suicide is the third leading cause of death in adolescents, and the rate appears to have doubled between 1961 and 1975. Many more adolescents make nonlethal attempts than make lethal attempts, and even more express suicidal thoughts. Suicidal behavior was associated with depressed mood, negative self-evaluation, anhedonia, insomnia, poor concentration, indecisiveness, lack of reactivity of mood, psychomotor disturbance, and alcohol and drug abuse. Depressive symptoms and suicidal behavior in several adolescent psychiatric patients were assessed by a structured interview and the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia. The negative correlations in the multiple regressions of the suicide items with three symptoms usually thought of as components of a major depressive disorder, namely, worse mood in the morning, psychomotor retardation, and weight loss, are puzzling. The ability to predict suicide in individuals is limited by the low base or prevalence rate of the disorder and the consequent number of false-positive or false- negative identifications by any of the methods tried.
