Background: Suicidal behaviour is a major health problem, particularly among patients with depressive disorders.
Aims: To determine the frequency of suicidal behavior among sample of patients with recurrent depressive disorder and to explore the relationship between suicidal behavior and cyclothymic temperament in these patients.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional study bearing on 98 patients (43 men and 55 women, mean age of 46.8 ± 9.9 years) followed for recurrent depressive disorder according to the criteria of DSM-IV recruited during partial or complete recovery interval. Information about suicidal behavior was collected from medical records. Cyclothymic temperament (CT) was assessed using the cyclothymic subscale (21 items). Patients who had scores above the threshold score of 10 and were considered as cyclothymic (CT+ group) and other patients were considered non-cyclothymic (CT- group).
Results: History of suicide attempts were reported in 22.4% of patients. The mean number of previous suicide attempts was significantly higher among patients in the TC+ group (0.7 ± 1.4) versus 0.2 ± 0.6 for patients in the TC- group (p=0.01). Recurrent thoughts of death and suicide attempts in the last depressive episode, were significantly higher in the CT+ group, with a 57.5% versus 24.6% in the CT- group, (p=0.001) and 33.3% versus 10.7% in the TC- group (p=0.006). A multivariate analysis retained the TC as an independent factor associated with suicidal behavior, with two other factors: the young age of patients and the frequency of previous hospitalizations.
Conclusion: Our findings the frequency of suicidal behavior and suggest the involvement of CT in the increased risk of suicide among patients with recurrent depressive disorder.