Prevalence of suicidal feelings in a sample of non-consulting medical students.

Five hundred and sixteen final-year non-consulting medical students were studied as to the occurrence of different degrees of suicidal feelings. A total of 12.6% reported some degree of suicidal feelings during the past year. Responses ranged along a continuum such that subjects reporting the more intense feelings also reported the less intense feelings. In 5.6% of the subjects the maximum intensity was only a feeling that life was not worthwhile, 4% had thought of taking their life, 0.9% had seriously considered suicide or made plans, and 0.4% had made an actual suicide attempt. Subjects experiencing suicidal feelings in the past year had had more minor psychiatric symptoms, particularly of depression, and had experienced more stressful events and somatic illness. In these respects they resembled the description of completed suicide.