Quality of life and suicidal risk in patients with diabetes mellitus.

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus may have profound effects on physical and emotional health and quality of life. OBJECTIVE: The authors evaluated the perceived quality of life and its association with suicide risk in Italian patients with diabetes mellitus. METHOD: Authors evaluated 100 patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Patients completed the Beck Hopelessness Scale, the Suicide Score Scale, the SF-36 Health Survey Questionnaire, and the General Self-Efficacy Scale. RESULTS: Patients with diabetes showed greater hopelessness and suicide ideation than internal-medicine outpatients. Poor quality of life was related to low self-efficacy, high hopelessness, and suicidality. A stepwise multiple regression found that polytherapy and older age predicted suicidality. CONCLUSION: It would be useful in future research to follow up patient samples to determine how many and which patients engage in fatal and nonfatal suicidal behavior and the relationship of these parameters with quality of life.