[Comparative socio-economic follow-up study of patients with psychogenic depressions and alcohol- and drug dependencies with and without suicide attempts (author's transl)].

A catamnestic examination in the sense of a pilot study concerning 104 patients having been treated between 1972 and 1976 in the Basle Psychiatric University outpatient clinic was centered on preponderately the following items "former psychiatric treatment", "suicidal attempts", "socioeconomic conditions", childhood" and "conditions of habitations". The collective of patients was presented by 52 psychogenic depressives and 52 alcohol- respectively drug-dependants. Of each group half of the patients had one or more suicidal attempts behind them. The comparison of the 2 diagnostic groups and of the patients with suicidal attempts with those who had never attempted suicide showed, among other significant findings, that the patients with suicidal attempts lived in the childhood and in the actual situations in worse conditions of habitation than those having never attempted suicide. This correlation was interpreted as a consequence of direct confinement by a narrow space and indirect confinement by pathological interactions and disturbances in the self development.