Psychiatry Research EG

Background Suicidal behavior among substance abusers is common. Despite increasing knowledge about substance abuse and suicidal behavior, we lack suffi cient knowledge about the characteristic features of suicidal substance abusers. Objective This study aimed to examine the associative characteristics of suicidal thoughts among polysubstance abusers. Materials and methods This was a case–control comparative study on 239 individuals between 18 and 45 years of age. We reviewed 122 individuals who fulfi lled the DSM-IV-TR criteria of substance abuse for two or more substances, and their data were compared with that collected from 117 control persons. Detailed demographic, clinical, and laboratory data of the participants were collected. They were administered a semistructured psychiatric interview and examination, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), and the Hamilton Anxiety Scale (Ham-A) on almost the 10th day after admission (after detoxifi cation). Results Suicidal cases formed 64.75% of the polysubstance abusers in our study. The mean score of Ham-A was 13.71 ± 6.31 for suicidal polydrug abusers, which was signifi cantly the highest among the groups; 24.1 and 6.3% of the suicidal cases experienced mild to moderate and moderate to severe anxiety, respectively, whereas the remaining experienced mild symptoms. Suicidal cases attained signifi cantly higher scores on the psychoticism and lie scale of EPQ in this study. Conclusion A statistically signifi cant relation was found between the suicidality in polysubstance abusers and a high level of anxiety as assessed by the Ham-A scale and personality traits related to psychoticism and the lie scale on EPQ. Keywor ds : Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Hamilton Anxiety Scale, polysubstance abuser