Risk-Taking Propensity, Depression and Parasuicide

Abstract

One hundred patients admitted consecutively to an inpatient psychiatric unit were given questionnaires to measure risk-taking propensity and depression. The purpose was to study the relationship between risk-taking, depression, and recent suicide attempts. It was found that depressed patients showed a bimodal clustering towards the extremes of risk-taking. There was a history of suicide attempts only when a certain threshold of risk-taking was exceeded. These findings are discussed with relation to defensive styles of psychological adaptation and to arousal thresholds.