Suicide is a serious problem in our society with a high emotional, as well as financial, burden. Research has identified a number of risk factors for suicidal behaviour, including the presence of psychiatric diagnosis, and the comorbidity of psychiatric diagnosis. In particular, high lifetime aggression and impulsiveness have repeatedly been implicated as risk factors for suicidal behaviour, and have also been observed to cluster in families. This study investigates the phenotype of suicide completion through exploration of comorbid patterns of psychopathology and seasonality in order to gain a better understanding of possible subgroups of suicide completers, particularly with respect to impulsive-aggressive behaviours and their psychopathological correlates. This study also explores the familiality of suicidal behaviour, and its relationship to impulsive-aggressive behaviours and their psychopathological correlates. Our findings show that suicide cases can be clustered into three different groups according comorbidity: a low-comorbidity group, a substance-dependent group, and a group exhibiting childhood onset of psychopathology. We also find that seasonal variation in suicide varies according to psychopathology. Finally, we confirm that suicide has a familial component independent of psychopathology, and find evidence to suggest that this may be mediated by severity of suicidal ideation, and aggressive behaviour.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.81346 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Kim, Caroline Donna |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Human Genetics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002166321, proquestno: AAIMR06409, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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