RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Suicide, psychiatric malpractice, and the bell curve JF Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online JO J Am Acad Psychiatry Law FD American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law SP 319 OP 323 VO 32 IS 3 A1 M Blinder YR 2004 UL http://jaapl.org/content/32/3/319.abstract AB The long-recognized "risk factors" of suicide are so fraught with false positives and negatives as to be nearly valueless in anticipating and preventing suicide or suicide attempts in actual clinical practice. Suicide is no more or less foreseeable in the few patients who attempt self-harm than in the many who make no such attempts. Finally, it is difficult to distinguish retrospectively the quality of the psychiatric care provided to patients who attempt or commit suicide from that received by those who do not. Thus, simple chance may be the only statistically meaningful risk factor for these tragic treatment outcomes.