This article reports the analysis of prospectively gathered data on
eight young adults who committed suicide during an ongoing longitudinal
study of long-term treatment of schizophrenia in the community. Young adult
men with an early onset of psychiatric illness were identified as a
high-risk subgroup. At the time of admission to the study, the subjects who
eventually committed suicide reported significantly more distress and
tended to be less satisfied with their lives than the other subjects.
Specifically, baseline measures of self-reported subjective distress were
consistently predictive of later suicide, whereas interviewer-rated
measures and postbaseline assessments were not.Abstract Teaser