Suicide and personality disorder in adolescence

Suicide is the outcome of a process proceeding from the experimentation of an unbearable pain (psychache) to hopelessness, to suicidal ideation, to parasuicidal behaviours and effective attempts with lethal or non-lethal outcomes. To understand suicidality means to study this staging with respect to a variety of factors that interact to facilitate the passage from one stage to the following one. Many psychopathological conditions have been considered to account for suicidality in adolescence, but only few studies have investigated the role of personality pathology and, in particular, pathological narcissism, an aspect that at various degree influences adolescent functioning and interacts with the presentation of several clinical conditions. The objective of this study is to analyse the relative of role of mood disorders, personality disorders and narcissistic pathological functioning in adolescence suicidality. The sample is constituted by 40 adolescents from the Mood Disorders Unit of the Ospedale Bambino Gesù di Roma assessed as at risk for suicidal behaviours. All Adolescents were administered with Columbia Suicide Severity Scale (CSSS), the Kiddie-Sads for Mood Disorders, Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), Child-Depression Rating Scale-Revised (CDRS-R), the SCIDII, the SCID II, the Diagnostic Interview for Narcissism (DIN), a semistructured interview to assess the continuum and diverse areas of narcissistic pathological functioning. Results show that Personality Pathology, in particular BPD, is a predictor of suicidal attempts. Diverse aspects of narcissistic pathological functioning as assessed by the DIN predict diverse aspects of suicidality, suicidal ideation and attempts.