Suicide is a public health problem. Some 800,000 people commit suicide every year around the world and it is the leading cause of external death in people under 40 years in Kenya and other countries
Biomedical research tries to find clues that help health professionals to detect early if a person is at risk of committing suicide to offer help.
One of the variables on which many studies have been published is personality. Does this influence the risk of committing suicide? If so, which traits are most relevant? A recent study reveals that perfectionism is associated with greater ideation, ie thoughts about the possibility of suicide.
The results are published in the Journal of personality and review a total of 45 investigations that total a total of 11,747 individuals among students, older population and psychiatric patients.
The study found a correlation between numerous features related to perfectionism and suicidal ideation, such as ‘perfectionist concern’. Under this term is included the ‘socially prescribed perfectionism’, the concern about own mistakes, doubts about actions performed and perfectionist attitudes in general.
Another set of provisions that were also related to suicidal ideation is that of ‘perfectionist efforts’, such as having hard-to-reach personal standards. Two other variables found were the presence of criticism by the parents and the great expectations also coming from the parents.
The researches of science to clarify if there is a relationship between perfectionism can be traced back 50 years ago. This study tries to collect the accumulated evidence until now and says that perfectionism increases the risk of thinking about suicide.
