Am J Psychiatry 1986; 143:1460-1463
Copyright © 1986 by American Psychiatric Association
Characteristics of 77 Puerto Ricans who attempted suicide
B Fernandez-Pol
Seventy-seven patients of Puerto Rican origin who had attempted suicide and
were admitted to the inpatient psychiatric unit of a general hospital were
administered the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (SADS),
selected items of the Life Crisis Inventory, and the Beck Depression
Inventory. Their scores on the SADS medical lethality and suicidal intent
scales were in the minimal range, and their Beck inventory scores were in
the mild range. Logistic regression analyses showed that alcohol and other
substance abuse was a significant predictor of attempted suicide; place of
birth (Puerto Rico versus the continental United States) was not.
