RESUMO
Suicidal behaviors in psychiatric patients are one of the main challenges in current clinical practice. The aim of this study was to investigate the gender differences in suicide risk for psychiatric patients in Poland and the influence of life satisfaction in different stages of life on suicidal tendencies. A descriptive-exploratory approach to inquiry was used for this study. Sixty patients aged 16-67 (45% males and 55% females) answered the demographic-descriptive questionnaire, the Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R) and the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale (CSASS). The results suggest that women turned out to show higher risk of suicidal behavior than men (p<0.001). Moreover, women displayed strong negative correlation between suicide risk and the anticipated life satisfaction in the future (rho=-0.542), while men displayed negative correlation between suicide risk and the pre-illness level of functioning (rho=-0.638). The findings suggest that different therapeutic approaches for each gender should be applied in suicide prevention process.