Parental Loss and Attempted Suicide: A Further Report

¹ Lecturer in Psychological Medicine, King's College Hospital, Denmark Hill, London, S.E.5

A consecutive series of 81 suicidal and 385 non-suicidal patients with neurotic and sociopathic disorders were compared in terms of: (i) incidence of childhood parental loss, (ii) age at loss, (iii) degree of loss, (iv) sex of the absent parent, (v) cause of loss, and (vi) subsequent childhood environment. The present communication describes results concerning the latter four variables and discusses these in the light of previously reported data (13) pertaining to variables (i) and (ii). The main findings of the whole study may be summarized as follows:—

(1) Suicidal neurotics differed significantly from non-suicidal neurotics in: (a) having a higher incidence of parental loss, (b) experiencing such loss more commonly before the age of 5, and (c) being deprived more frequently of both parents.

(2) Among sociopaths, the same trend was observed in respect of each of these variables, although the differences between suicidal and non-suicidal patients failed to reach statistical significance.

(3) No associations were observed in neurotics and sociopaths between suicidal behaviour and: (a) the sex of the absent parent, (b) the cause of parental loss, or (c) the subsequent childhood environment.

(4) The suicidal and control groups in the present sample were similar in terms of sex ratio and social class distribution, but suicidal patients were predominantly younger than controls. Statistical analysis suggests that differences in age distribution do not account for the observed associations between attempted suicide and parental loss.

(5) Irrespective of suicidal behaviour, neurotics were found to differ significantly from sociopaths in terms of: parental loss incidence, age at loss, degree of loss and the subsequent childhood environment.

The limitations of this study have been considered and the need for confirmatory evidence from further surveys is emphasized.