Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Home
  • Home
Hostname: page-component-559fc8cf4f-s5ss2 Total loading time: 0.27 Render date: 2021-02-26T22:21:20.035Z Has data issue: true Feature Flags: { "shouldUseShareProductTool": true, "shouldUseHypothesis": true, "isUnsiloEnabled": true, "metricsAbstractViews": false, "figures": false, "newCiteModal": false, "newCitedByModal": true }
EnglishFrançais
The British Journal of Psychiatry The British Journal of Psychiatry

Article contents

Suicidal Feelings in the General Population: A Prevalence Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

E. S. Paykel ,
J. K. Myers ,
J. J. Lindenthal  and
J. Tanner
E. S. Paykel
Affiliation:
St. George's Hospital, London, S.W.17
J. K. Myers
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Conn., U.S.A.
J. J. Lindenthal
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A.
J. Tanner
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Conn., U.S.A.
Get access
Rights & Permissions[Opens in a new window]

Extract

Feelings that life is not worth living and thoughts of suicide are common in psychiatric patients, particularly in depressives (Beck, 1967). Very little information is available, however, regarding the occurrence of suicidal feelings in the general population. In contrast, the epidemiology of completed suicide has received extensive study (Dublin, 1963), and there have been some epidemiological studies of attempted suicide (Shneidman and Farberow, 1961; Mintz, 1964; Parkin and Stengel, 1965). However, this information cannot automatically be generalized to suicidal feelings. It has been emphasized in recent years that suicidal phenomena are diverse, and that completed suicide, suicidal attempts, and suicidal feelings should not be equated (Stengel and Cook, 1958; Neuringer, 1962).

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 124 , Issue 582 , May 1974 , pp. 460 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1974 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below.
If you should have access and can't see this content please contact technical support.

References

Beck, A. T. (1967). Depression: Clinical, Experimental and Theoretical Aspects. New York: Hoeber Medical Division, Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Benfari, R. C., Beiser, M., Leighton, A. H., and Mertens, G. (1972). ‘Some dimensions of psychoneurotic behaviour in an urban sample.’ Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 155, 77–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dublin, L. (1963). Suicide: A Sociological and Statistical Study. New York: The Ronald Press Company.Google Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1897). Le Suicide. Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan. (Translated by Spaulding, J. A., and Simpson, G. and published as Suicide, Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1951).Google Scholar
Gurin, G., Veroff, J., and Feld, S. (1960). Americans View their Mental Health: A Nationwide Survey. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Hollingshead, A. B. (1957). Two Factor Index of Social Position. Mimeographed Booklet, Yale BUniversity, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Litman, R. E., and Farberow, N. L. (1961). ‘Emergency evaluation of self-destructive potentiality’, in The Cry for Help (eds. Farberow, N. L., and Shneidman, E. S.). New York: McGraw Hill Book Company.Google Scholar
MacMillan, A. M. (1957). ‘The Health Opinion Survey: technique for estimating prevalence of psychosomatic and related types of disorder in communities.’ Psychological Reports, 3, 325–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintz, R. S. (1964). ‘A pilot study of the prevalence of persons in the City of Los Angeles who have attempted suicide.’ Paper presented at the 120th Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, Los AAngeles, California, May C1964.Google Scholar
Myers, J. K., and Roberts, B. H. (1959). Family and Class Dynamics in Mental Illness. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Myers, J. K., Lindenthal, J. J., and Pepper, M. P. (1971). ‘Life events and psychiatric impairment.’ Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 152, 140–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, J. K., Lindenthal, J. J., Pepper, M. P., and Ostrander, D. R. (1972). ‘Life events and mental status: a longitudinal study.’ Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, 13, 398–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neuringer, G. (1962). ‘Methodological problems in suicide research.’ Journal of Consulting Psychology, 26, 273–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkin, D., and Stengel, E. (1965). ‘Incidence of suicide attempts in an urban community.’ British Medical Journal, 2, 133–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paykel, E. S., Myers, J. K., Dienelt, M. N., Klerman, G. L., Lindenthal, J. J., and Pepper, M. P. (1969). ‘Life events and depression: a controlled study.’ Archives of General Psychiatry, 21, 753–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pokorny, A. D. (1964). ‘Suicide rates in various psychiatric disorders.’ Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 139, 499–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sainsbury, P. (1955). Suicide in London: An Ecological Study. Maudsley Monograph No. 1. London: Chapman and Hall.Google Scholar
Shneidman, E. S., and Farberow, N. L. (1961). ‘Statistical comparisons between attempted and committed suicides’, in The Cry for Help (eds. Farberow, N. L., and Shneidman, E. S.). New York: McGraw Hill Book Company.Google Scholar
Srole, L., Langner, T. S., Michael, S. T., Opler, M. K. and Rennte, T. A. C. (1962). Mental Health in the Metropolis. New York: McGraw Hill Book Company.Google ScholarPubMed
Stengel, E., and Cook, N. G. (1958). Attempted Suicide. London: Oxford University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Swanson, W. C., Harter, C. L., Breed, W., Scrignar, C. B., and Hardin, AA. (1971). Barriers to the Use of Suicide Prevention Centers. Final report to N.I.M.H., 20 October 1971.Google Scholar
Temoche, A., Pugh, T. F., and McMahon, B. (1964). ‘Suicide rates among current and former mental institute patients.’ Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 138, 124–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuckman, J., and Youngman, W. F. (1963). ‘Suicide risk among persons attempting suicide.’ Public Health Reports, 78, 585–87.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Full text views reflects PDF downloads, PDFs sent to Google Drive, Dropbox and Kindle and HTML full text views.

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 249 *
View data table for this chart

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between 29th January 2018 - 26th February 2021. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

424 Cited by

Send article to Kindle

To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle.

Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Suicidal Feelings in the General Population: A Prevalence Study
Available formats
×

Send article to Dropbox

To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox.

Suicidal Feelings in the General Population: A Prevalence Study
Available formats
×

Send article to Google Drive

To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive.

Suicidal Feelings in the General Population: A Prevalence Study
Available formats
×
×

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

Conflicting interests

Do you have any conflicting interests? *