Abstract
The aim of the analysis was to comparetwo samples of young people after attemptedsuicide (AS) in terms of selected socio-demographic factors and psychological traits.None of the subjects had received any psychiatric treatment prior to their admission to the Departmentof Acute Poisoning, Institute of OccupationalMedicine in Łódź. The two samples consisted ofyoung patients admitted after AS during two consecutiveyears: the first cohort (N=93) in theyears 1989-1990, and the second one (N=84)from January to December 1998. Assessment ofthe two equivalent AS samples at eight years' intervalindicated that despite some differences in thesocio-demographic structure of the two groups(concerning age, place of residence, type ofschool), young people's suicidal behavior was relatedto the same psychological and social factors,mostly to family pathology in a broad sense of theterm and to problems at school.