Suicide risk in female suicide attempters not responding to a follow-up study

The 95 patients not responding to a follow-up study of 227 female suicide attempters differed from the responders in that fewer of them were undergoing psychiatric treatment at the time of the suicide attempt and fewer were referred for psychiatric outpatient aftercare following the suicide attempt. Yet, the subsequent occurrence of suicide was no higher in the group of nonresponders than in the group of responders. This study again underlines the difficulty of predicting recurrent suicidal behavior, even in a high-risk group of suicide attempters.