Suicidal thoughts as cognitive risk factors for suicide among cancer patients

The aim of this study is twofold. The first aim is to investigate whether we can use the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), translated on Macedonian language, item 9 in order to screen passive suicidal thoughts. The second aim is to describe the nature of „better to be death thoughts or hurting own self in some way“ reported with structure clinical interviews carried out in order to further asses passive suicidal thoughts of cancer patients, who hade endorsed item 9 of this scale. The data were collected from Department of maxillofacial surgery, Clinical Hospital, Stip, Macedonia, during the period june 2014 - june 2016. The final survey sample consists of 122 patients (66 % female and 34% male) aged 19-70 years. Inclusive criteria: patients were diagnosed with cancer in maxillofacial region. We applied Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and structured clinical interview. Two weeks after they become familiar with the diagnose they filled up PHQ-9 scale, and after four weeks clinical interviews were carried out. The reliability (Cronbach`s alpha) for the PHQ-9 scale translated on Macedonian language and sample was good (alpha > 0.85). We found that patients with diagnosed cancer who endorsed „passive suicide ideas item 9“ were more likely to have suicidal thoughts which were described latter on during clinical interview. We analyzed thoughts reported by patients in the frame of modified categories of suicidality. Of 67 (54.92%) of patients who endorsed item 9 with „yes“, the highest percentige was in category with passive suicidal thoughts 39 (58.21%). Due to the limitation of this study, more studies are needed in future.