The association between life events and suicide intent in self-poisoners with and without a history of deliberate self-harm: a preliminary study

The associations between life events in the 12 months preceding an episode of self-poisoning resulting in hospital attendance (the index episode), and the suicide intent of this episode were compared in individuals for whom the index episode was their first, episode and in individuals in whom it was a recurrence of DSH. Results indicated a significant interaction between independent life events, repetition status, and gender in the prediction of suicide intent, the association between life events and intent being moderated by repetition status in women only. The results provide preliminary evidence to suggest the presence of a suicidal process in women, in which the impact of negative life events on suicide intent diminishes across episodes.     

Cross-national comparisons of the association between alcohol consumption and deliberate self-harm in adolescents

How differences in drinking patterns may affect the impact of alcohol consumption on deliberate self-harm among adolescents is explored in this international comparative study. Schools in Australia, Belgium, England, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Norway (N = 30,532) were surveyed. In all countries the risk of deliberate self-harm was significantly elevated among adolescents who reported some or numerous episodes of intoxication, controlling for confounding factors. The results support the assumption that intoxication is significantly related to the association between alcohol consumption and deliberate self-harm in adolescents.     

Why people engage in parasuicide: a cross-cultural study of intentions

Information obtained at interview from 1,646 parasuicide patients in 14 regions in 13 European countries participating in the WHO/EURO Multicentre Study on Suicidal Behaviour was used to study self-reported intentions involved in parasuicide. Comparisons were made across cultures, genders, and age groups. Although some statistically significant differences were found, the effect sizes were very small. The main finding from this study is thus that parasuicide patients in different countries tend to indicate that similar types of intentions are involved in their acts of parasuicide, and that the intentions do not vary greatly with gender or age. The hypothesis that rates of suicide and parasuicide vary between regions with the frequency with which suicidal intention is indicated by the patients was also tested, but was supported only for women and in relation to national suicide rates. The findings from this study are likely to be generalizable to other settings and have implications for clinical practice.     

Rapid discrimination of McCollough effects.

The McCollough effect is a colour aftereffect that is contingent on pattern orientation. Three experiments were conducted to establish whether such aftereffect colours could serve as a basis for discrimination in several rapid discrimination tasks. In the first experiment it was investigated whether aftereffect colours could act like a simple 'feature' in a visual search task involving a difficult orientation discrimination. Without McCollough adaptation, the time taken to detect a 'target' among 'distractors' increased substantially as the number of distractors increased. With adaptation, detection time was essentially independent of the number of distractors, indicating that the nature of the task changed from a difficult orientation discrimination to a simple discrimination based on differences in aftereffect colours. The second and third experiments employed a difficult four-alternative forced-choice procedure in which subjects were required to discriminate a monochromatic patch of square-wave grating oriented at 45 degrees from three others oriented at 135 degrees (and vice versa). The gratings were presented very briefly (67-333 ms) followed by a 500 ms mask. Subjects performed the task with and without McCollough adaptation. Performance was strikingly better after adaptation: colour aftereffects could be used to make the discrimination even at exposure durations as short as 67 ms. The third experiment demonstrated that this enhanced performance was indeed due to perceived colour differences (rather than a possible contrast difference). The results of the three experiments are discussed in relation to proposals about the locus of the McCollough effect.