Comparisons of Prisoners Who Make or Do Not Make Suicide Attempts and Further Who Make One or Multiple Attempts

Abstract

Suicidal behavior among prisoners is a major problem. The objective of this study was to compare prisoners who have made an attempt at suicide vs non-attempters and further to compare single vs multiple suicide attempts. Among 1,537 prisoners, 200 (13%) had a lifetime history of attempting suicide and 92 (6%) had made multiple attempts. Those who had made multiple or single attempts were compared on socio-demographic, developmental, personality, forensic, and psychiatric variables. In a re-analysis we also compared non-attempters with attempters in this larger sample. The comparison showed that prisoners who had made multiple attempts had experienced significantly more childhood trauma, were more introverted, less resilient, had a history of self-mutilation, and had more suicidal ideation. Anger and hostility scores and criminal and violence histories significantly differentiated prisoners who had attempted from those who had never attempted but they did not differentiate multiple from single attempters. Having a history of multiple attempts may be indicative of more severe psychopathology in prisoners, as found in other populations. These findings may be helpful in predicting which prisoner is at increased risk of exhibiting suicidal behavior while incarcerated and after release.

Hospital‐treated suicide attempts among Finnish fire setters: a follow‐up study

“…So, our sample might have higher levels of psychopathology than prison populations. Despite these differences, however, rates of Thomson et al self-harm among the fire setters in our cohort were similar to those reported in earlier studies of prisoners (Bland et al, 1990;Jenkins et al, 2005;Roy et al, 2014), suggesting that risk of attempted suicide is elevated by factors associated with being an offender rather than fire setting per se. To verify this, a follow-up study to compare suicide attempts between arsonists and prisoners of other types of crimes is needed in the future.…”

“…Approximately 14-23% of male prisoners have attempted suicide in their lifetime (Bland et al, 1990;Jenkins et al, 2005;Sarchiapone et al, 2009). According to a study by Roy et al (2014), 13% of a prison sample of 1537 men had a lifetime history of attempted suicide; 6% had made multiple attempts. Prisoners with multiple attempts were more introverted and less resilient and more likely to have a history of self-mutilation than those with only one suicide attempt.…”

Suicide and suicides attempts in Italian prison epidemiological findings from the “Triveneto” area, 2010–2016

“…These findings echo earlier data relating to 1990-2002 (Preti & Cascio, 2006). Unfortunately, despite such high rates of suicide in Italian prisons, few individualbased studies have been carried out in Italy in order to investigate suicide risk factors in inmates (Carli et al, 2011;Roy et al, 2014;Sarchiapone, Carli, Di Giannantonio, & Roy, 2009;Sarchiapone, Jovanovic, et al, 2009;Verdolini et al, 2017). Nonetheless, efforts to enhance prevention strategies in prisons were recently carried by the Italian government through the approval of a national action plan on suicide prevention in prisons (Conferenza Unificata Stato-Regioni).…”

“…Suicide attempts have also been observed to be more frequent in inmates than non-inmates (Jenkins et al, 2005;Sarchiapone, Jovanovic, et al, 2009;Wichmann, Serin, & Motiuk, 2000). Previous suicide attempts and self-injury are amongst the main risk factors for suicide in inmates (Carli et al, 2011;Fazel, Cartwright, Norman-Nott, & Hawton, 2008;Fruehwald, Matschnig, Koenig, Bauer, & Frottier, 2004;Hawton, Linsell, Adeniji, Sariaslan, & Fazel, 2014;Humber, Webb, Piper, Appleby, & Shaw, 2013;Roy, Carli, Sarchiapone, & Branchey, 2014;Verdolini et al, 2017). Other risk factors appear to be specifically related to the prison environment (Dye, 2010;Fazel et al, 2008;World Health Organization, 2007), Indeed, suicidal behaviours in prisons are likely due to complex interactions between individual-level (such as the types of crimes committed before incarceration (Fazel et al, 2008;Hawton et al, 2014;Rabe, 2012;Verdolini et al, 2017), and ecological factors (Jenkins et al, 2005), including the nature and quality of prison environments and regimes (Dye, 2010;Fazel et al, 2017).…”

How to Deal with Personality in Suicidal Behavior?

“…Among prisoners, anger and hostility scores differentiate also those who had attempted suicide (Roy et al 2014 ). Furthermore, hostility was found to be higher in depressed attempters with siblings concordant for SBs (Brent et al 2003 ).…”