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Personality and Suicidal Behavior in Old Age: A Systematic Literature Review
BACKGROUND: Suicide rates generally peak in the second half of life and are particularly high in older men; however, little is known about the contribution of dispositional factors to late-life suicide. Maladaptive personality traits have been strongly implicated in suicide among younger adults, but...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5949532/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29867594 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00128 |
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author | Szücs, Anna Szanto, Katalin Aubry, Jean-Michel Dombrovski, Alexandre Y. |
author_facet | Szücs, Anna Szanto, Katalin Aubry, Jean-Michel Dombrovski, Alexandre Y. |
author_sort | Szücs, Anna |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Suicide rates generally peak in the second half of life and are particularly high in older men; however, little is known about the contribution of dispositional factors to late-life suicide. Maladaptive personality traits have been strongly implicated in suicide among younger adults, but the extent to which they continue to play a role in late-life suicidal behavior is unclear. We also do not know whether specific personality profiles interact with the stressors of aging to cause suicidal behavior. METHODS: We sought to synthesize the data on personality pathology in late-life suicidal ideation and behavior via a systematic review using the PubMed, Google Scholar, PsycInfo, Scopus, Ovid, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane search engines. The included key words related to three descriptors: “personality,” “suicide,” and “elderly.” Included articles evaluated personality based on the Five-Factor Model (FFM) or ICD/DSM diagnostic criteria in older samples with minimum age cutoffs of 50 years or older. Our original search identified 1,183 articles, of which 31 were retained. RESULTS: Included studies were heterogeneous in their design and personality measurements. Studies of categorical personality disorders were particularly scarce and suggested a stronger association with late-life suicidal ideation than with death by suicide. Only obsessive–compulsive and avoidant personality traits were associated with death by suicide in old age, but only in studies that did not control for depression. All personality constructs were positively linked to suicidal ideation, except for histrionic personality, which emerged as a negative predictor. Studies employing the FFM also indicated that older adults who died by suicide were less likely to display a maladaptive personality profile than elderly suicide attempters and younger suicide victims, having both lower levels of neuroticism and higher levels of conscientiousness than these comparison groups. Nevertheless, older suicide victims displayed lower levels of openness to experience than younger victims in two samples. CONCLUSION: Maladaptive personality manifests in milder, subthreshold, and more heterogeneous forms in late-life vs. early-life suicide. An inability to adapt to the changes occurring in late life may help explain the association between suicide in old age and higher conscientiousness as well as obsessive–compulsive and avoidant personality disorders. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5949532 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-59495322018-06-04 Personality and Suicidal Behavior in Old Age: A Systematic Literature Review Szücs, Anna Szanto, Katalin Aubry, Jean-Michel Dombrovski, Alexandre Y. Front Psychiatry Psychiatry BACKGROUND: Suicide rates generally peak in the second half of life and are particularly high in older men; however, little is known about the contribution of dispositional factors to late-life suicide. Maladaptive personality traits have been strongly implicated in suicide among younger adults, but the extent to which they continue to play a role in late-life suicidal behavior is unclear. We also do not know whether specific personality profiles interact with the stressors of aging to cause suicidal behavior. METHODS: We sought to synthesize the data on personality pathology in late-life suicidal ideation and behavior via a systematic review using the PubMed, Google Scholar, PsycInfo, Scopus, Ovid, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane search engines. The included key words related to three descriptors: “personality,” “suicide,” and “elderly.” Included articles evaluated personality based on the Five-Factor Model (FFM) or ICD/DSM diagnostic criteria in older samples with minimum age cutoffs of 50 years or older. Our original search identified 1,183 articles, of which 31 were retained. RESULTS: Included studies were heterogeneous in their design and personality measurements. Studies of categorical personality disorders were particularly scarce and suggested a stronger association with late-life suicidal ideation than with death by suicide. Only obsessive–compulsive and avoidant personality traits were associated with death by suicide in old age, but only in studies that did not control for depression. All personality constructs were positively linked to suicidal ideation, except for histrionic personality, which emerged as a negative predictor. Studies employing the FFM also indicated that older adults who died by suicide were less likely to display a maladaptive personality profile than elderly suicide attempters and younger suicide victims, having both lower levels of neuroticism and higher levels of conscientiousness than these comparison groups. Nevertheless, older suicide victims displayed lower levels of openness to experience than younger victims in two samples. CONCLUSION: Maladaptive personality manifests in milder, subthreshold, and more heterogeneous forms in late-life vs. early-life suicide. An inability to adapt to the changes occurring in late life may help explain the association between suicide in old age and higher conscientiousness as well as obsessive–compulsive and avoidant personality disorders. Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-05-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5949532/ /pubmed/29867594 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00128 Text en Copyright © 2018 Szücs, Szanto, Aubry and Dombrovski. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychiatry Szücs, Anna Szanto, Katalin Aubry, Jean-Michel Dombrovski, Alexandre Y. Personality and Suicidal Behavior in Old Age: A Systematic Literature Review |
title | Personality and Suicidal Behavior in Old Age: A Systematic Literature Review |
title_full | Personality and Suicidal Behavior in Old Age: A Systematic Literature Review |
title_fullStr | Personality and Suicidal Behavior in Old Age: A Systematic Literature Review |
title_full_unstemmed | Personality and Suicidal Behavior in Old Age: A Systematic Literature Review |
title_short | Personality and Suicidal Behavior in Old Age: A Systematic Literature Review |
title_sort | personality and suicidal behavior in old age: a systematic literature review |
topic | Psychiatry |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5949532/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29867594 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00128 |
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