Furthermore, there were no differences between the groups in terms of the severity of illness in the month before death or whether they had prior mental health treatment.
Table2 compares the prevalence of different psychotic and depressive symptoms between the two groups. There were no differences between the groups in the prvalence of different psychotic symptoms over the month prior to death. In addition, none of the accidental controls met DSM-IV criteria for major or minor depression while 20 of 74 suicide decedents met full criteria for DSM-IV major or minor depression; this difference was statistically significant. Furthermore, the group that completed suicide were more likely to have had a past suicide attempt, to have recently experienced the symptoms and the effect of the depressive symptoms on functioning were significantly higher in those who died by suicide.