Szanto, K, Bruine de Bruin, W, Parker, AM et al. (3 more authors) (2015) Decision-making competence and attempted suicide. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 76 (12). e1590-e1597. ISSN 0160-6689
Abstract
Objective: The propensity of people vulnerable to suicide to make poor life decisions is increasingly well documented. Do they display an extreme degree of decision biases? The present study used a behavioral decision approach to examine the susceptibility of low-lethality and high-lethality suicide attempters to common decision biases, which may ultimately obscure alternative solutions and deterrents to suicide in a crisis. Method: We assessed older and middle-aged individuals who made high-lethality (medically serious; N=31) and low-lethality suicide attempts (N=29). Comparison groups included suicide ideators (N=30), non-suicidal depressed (N=53), and psychiatrically healthy participants (N=28). Attempters, ideators, and non-suicidal depressed participants had unipolar non-psychotic major depression. Decision biases included sunk cost (inability to abort an action for which costs are irrecoverable), framing (responding to superficial features of how a problem is presented), under/overconfidence (appropriateness of confidence in knowledge), and inconsistent risk perception. Data were collected between June of 2010 and February of 2014. Results: Both high- and low-lethality attempters were more susceptible to framing effects, as compared to the other groups included in this study (p< 0.05, ηp2 =.06). In contrast, low-lethality attempters were more susceptible to sunk costs than both the comparison groups and high-lethality attempters (p< 0.01, ηp2 =.09). These group differences remained after accounting for age, global cognitive performance, and impulsive traits. Premorbid IQ partially explained group differences in framing effects. Conclusion: Suicide attempters’ failure to resist framing may reflect their inability to consider a decision from an objective standpoint in a crisis. Low-lethality attempters’ failure to resist sunk cost may reflect their tendency to confuse past and future costs of their behavior, lowering their threshold for acting on suicidal thoughts.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Management Division (LUBS) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number European Commission 618522 EU - European Union PCIG13-GA-2013-618522 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 29 Jul 2015 09:39 |
Last Modified: | 03 Nov 2016 07:01 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.4088/JCP.15m09778 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Physicians Postgraduate Press |
Identification Number: | 10.4088/JCP.15m09778 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:88401 |