Psychological pain and previous suicide attempts in young adults: Results with the Portuguese version of the Psychache Scale.
OBJECTIVES
In this study, we tested whether the unbearable pain scale of the Psychache Scale provides value for the statistical prediction of a previous suicide attempt; we evaluated whether psychological pain has incremental value in the statistical prediction of a previous suicide attempt relative to the reporting of having had a psychiatric diagnosis, and we established a cut-score for the Psychache Scale.


METHOD
Two samples participated: a sample consisting of 1,460 young adults and a sample of 628 Portuguese community adults.


RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
Results demonstrated that unbearable pain is not a stronger predictor of a previous suicide attempt than is the bearable pain score of the Psychache Scale; that the total score of the Psychache scale provides an additional statistically significant contribution to the statistical prediction of a previous suicide attempt relative to the reporting of having had a psychiatric diagnosis.