Suicidal behavior is the cause of significant morbidity and mortality in people with schizophrenia, and thus it poses a major clinical problem. However, little is known about suicidal thinking and behavior in the early phases of the illness (the period of highest risk). The proposed line of research works within a previously developed theoretical model (Jobes et al., 2000) to isolate predictors of suicidality in this high-risk population, information that can guide future intervention research. Specifically, the current project seeks to: 1) identify risk and protective factors for suicide and suicidality in a population at high genetic risk for developing schizophrenia using an existing data-set; 2) identify predictors of suicidality in people with prodromal symptoms of psychosis using a longitudinal, prospective design; and 3) collect and identify themes about reasons for living and reasons for dying from the subjective reports of participants in the longitudinal, prospective study, information that could be pertinent to future suicide prevention research.
