The authors tested the hypothesis that people addicted to opiates
manifest more psychopathology in areas that have been identified as
predictors for high risk of suicidal behavior than do normal control
subjects. They gave 278 patients in a methadone maintenance program and 207
normal control subjects the index of Potential Suicide (IPS), a scale
designed to assess suicidal risk. Using discriminate function analysis, the
authors found that 87% of 100 of the methadone patients and 98% of 100 of
the normal control subjects were correctly identified on the basis of the
IPS data.Abstract Teaser