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Brown and Harris (1978) and Radloff and Rae (1979) have suggested that depression may result from the interaction of precipitating and susceptibility factors. The present study investigated the relationship between depressive symptomatology and a set of demographic and psychosocial variables presumed to be depression-susceptibility factors. A sample of 499 adult women completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), a demographic assessment, and measures of four psychosocial variables: life control, perceived accomplishment, derived identity, and social support. Higher CES-D scores were associated with less perceived life control, less perceived accomplishment, higher derived identity, and lower social support. Consistent with previous findings, higher CES-D scores also correlated with lower education, lower or nonemployment, younger age, and lower family income. To assess the relative importance of demographic and psychosocial factors, a hierarchical multiple regression was conducted with demographic variables entered first, followed by the psychosocial variables and, last, by the interaction variables. The set of psychosocial variables accounted for an additional 28% of depression variance beyond the 11% accounted for by the demographic variables. Perceived life control was the strongest contributor to the final regression equation. Alternative interpretations of the results and recommendations for future research are discussed.

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The longitudinal data from the Terman Genetic Studies of Genius were used to predict suicide in 40 women: 8 suicides, 15 women who were matched with the suicides on age of death, and 17 subjects who were still living in 1964. Seven variables from the subjects 1 files were assessed as possible predictors of suicide: subject's physical health, early loss of the father, stress in the family of origin, problems with alcohol, and three indices of mental health. A discriminant function analysis was able to differentiate the women who committed suicide from the two control groups. A seven-variable function predicted 100% of the suicides. A four-variable function predicted 75% of the suicides. The results indicate that suicide risk factors can be identified in women and certain "signatures" of suicide are as useful in predicting female suicide as male suicide.The psychological turmoil surrounding people who commit suicide has often been chronicled in psychological autopsies that describe the forces pushing a person toward suicide (Shneidman, 1981;Weisman, 1974). These psychological autopsies are retrospective, beginning with the fact of suicide and looking for harbingers of death in the days, weeks, and months preceding suicide (Niswander, Casey, & Humphrey, 1973). Although such retrospective studies have yielded numerous factors associated with increased suicide (Lester, 1983;Neuringer, 1974), these factors have rarely been validated as predictors of suicide in prospective studies.The Lundby study, conducted in Sweden, is the only prospective study of suicide currently available that used a representative sample. This study, which followed over 3,000 adults for 25 years, included periodic mental health evaluations for a representative sample of the Swedish population (Hagnell, Lanke, & Rorsman, 1981;Hagnell & Rorsman, 1980). So few women from this group committed suicide, however, that the investigators limited their analysis to the 23 male suicides.An alternative strategy that has been used to validate predictors of suicide is to follow psychiatric populations (Borg & Stahl, 1982;Juel-Nielsen, 1979;Robin, Brooke, & Freeman-Brown, 1968) or alcoholics (Berglund, 1984). The subjects in these studies are individuals who have been admitted to a hospital. Once they come to the attention of the mental health profession, these in-