The relationship of suicidality and psychiatric diagnosis in hospitalized pre-adolescent children.

Two structured interview measures of suicidal behavior were administered to 43 child psychiatric inpatients between the ages of 7 and 11 and their parents. DSM-III-R diagnoses were assigned to the children, with twenty-six Axis I and Axis II diagnostic categories represented. Generally, the interview measures of suicidal behavior were found to be unrelated to psychiatric diagnosis. The results suggest that to better understand pre-adolescent suicidal behaviors, it may be more useful to examine associations between these behaviors and the biopsychosocial dimensions that underlie the diagnostic categories.