The relationship between attempted suicide, depression and parent death.

Abstract

The present study is one of a series of investigations concerned with the relationship between parent death and mental illness. In previous studies (Birtchnell 1970 a and b) it has been shown that significantly more psychiatric patients, compared with a general population control group, experienced parent death during the first five years of life and during a period of one to five years before admission to hospital. It was further shown (Birtchnell 1970c) that within the patient group, though the incidence of early and recent parent death was similar among depressed and non-depressed patients, the severely depressed compared with the moderately depressed patients experienced sig- nificandy more parental bereavements during the first twenty years of life and during a period of one to twenty years before admission. In a large sample of depressed in-patients, Hill (1969) demonstrated a significant excess of early parent deaths in those who attempted suicide, and he suggested that this might be secondary to the association between early parent death and severe depression.