Citation

Spittle B, Bragan K, James B. Aust. N. Zeal. J. Psychiatry 1976; 10(3): 269-273.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1976, Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

1071006

Abstract

One hundred patients admitted consecutively to an inpatient psychiatric unit were given questionnaires to measure risk-taking propensity and depression. The purpose was to study the relationship between risk-taking, depression, and recent suicide attempts. It was found that depressed patients showed a bimodal clustering towards the extremes of risk-taking. There was a history of suicide attempts only when a certain threshold of risk-taking was exceeded. These findings are discussed with relation to defensive styles of psychological adaptation and to arousal thresholds.

Language: en