[Life events and self-destructive behavior].

The role of life events in precipitating self-destructive behaviour, especially in suicide attempts, needs to be studied in this paper the social readjustment rating scale (Holmes and Rahe), in its spanish version, in a sample of 100 suicide attempters are reported. The mean social readjustment index was 255.2 +/- 137.01, which is a higher score than that observed in medical inpatients (180.69 +/- 72.03) in our context. The mean life events index was 8.69 +/- 4.32, higher valves than were recorded in the somatic in patients sample (5.97 +/- 2.99). No sex differences were found in any of the two indexes. The finding of a greater number of unpleasant life events by different researchers is discussed.