Background: To examine the relationship between anger, impulsivity and suicidality. Methods: Thirty psychiatric inpatients admitted for suicidal behavior were compared with 30 nonsuicidal psychiatric inpatients and 32 healthy controls on measures of anger, impulsivity and suicide risk. Results: The three groups were similar on demographic variables, but the suicidal group scored higher on the suicide risk scale, impulsivity scale and anger scale. Anger and impulsivity correlated significantly with suicide risk. High anger and impulsivity contributed synergistically to the suicide risk. Whereas anger was specific to both psychiatric groups, suicidals and nonsuicidals, only impulsivity was specific to the suicidal group. Conclusions: These findings may have important implications for therapists and primary prevention workers, and may pave the way for the recognition of risk factors and for effective intervention in patients with a high suicide risk.

A total of 30 psychiatric in-patients admitted because of suicidal behaviour were compared with 30 non-suicidal psychiatric in-patients and 32 healthy controls on measures of suicide risk and coping styles. The three groups were similar with regard to demographic variables, but the suicidal group scored higher on the suicide risk scale. Suicidal patients were significantly less likely to use the coping styles of minimization and mapping. They were unable to de-emphasize the importance of a perceived problem or source of stress. They also lacked the ability to obtain new information required to resolve stressful life events. Four coping styles correlated negatively with the suicide risk (minimization, replacement, mapping and reversal), while another three (suppression, blame and substitution) correlated positively. These findings may have important implications for therapists and primary prevention workers, and might pave the way towards recognition of the role played by coping styles in predicting suicide and its use for cognitive intervention in these high-risk patients.