Relationship between Positive and Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia and Psychotic Depression with Risk of Suicide

Suicide is one of the most important early causes of death in psychotic patients. the main objectof this research was to determine the relationship between positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia andpsychotic major depressive disorder (mdd) with suicidal history and risk.methods: sixty five patients with schizophrenia compared to 65 patients with psychotic mdd in a crosssectional study. patients were evaluated using positive and negative syndrome scale (panss) (to measureseverity of psychopathology) and the california risk estimator for suicide. collected information were analyzedusing spss 11/8 version by t-test, chi-square and anova and pearson correlation test.results: there was a significant relation between positive symptoms with suicidal risk and histories ofsuicidal attempts in patients with schizophrenia (r= 708, p<0.0001 and r= 0.55, p<0.0001 respectively). negativesymptoms also had a significant but reverse relation with suicidal risk and histories of suicidal attempts in thisgroup (r= -0.529, p<0.0001 and r = -0.512, p<0.0001 respectively). there was a significant reverse relationbetween positive symptoms and suicidal risk in patients with psychotic mdd (r= -0.26, p<0.036). negativesymptoms did not have a significant relation with suicidal risk in this group. also there was no significantrelation between positive or negative symptoms and histories of suicidal attempts in mdd patients.conclusion: positive and negative symptoms have different relationships with suicide in patients withschizophrenia and psychotic mdd.iranian journal of psychiatry and behavioral sciences (ijpbs), volume 3, number 1, spring and summer 2009: 27-32.