Mediating factors in the relationship between life stress and suicide attempting.

The present study examined male suicide attempters and a control population of psychiatric patients in an effort to determine the importance of life stress and locus of control as factors in suicide attempting. The parasuicide group was found to be younger, less psychotic, and more depressed than the psychiatric group. Age was found to mediate the relationship between stress and suicide attempts; among older subjects, stress was greater in the attempt group than in the control group, but no difference in stress levels was found for younger subjects. With respect to locus of control, the results indicated that suicide attempters did not differ from psychiatric patients on degree of externality, although a relationship between stress and parasuicide was found for those individuals identified as congruent externals.