The possibility that patients who have suffered a traumatic brain injury will commit suicide is high, and in many cases clinicians tend to underestimate this possibility. In this study, 39 consecutive patients are studied through a Rorschach technique more than 1.5 years after their hospital discharge. The data show that 48.6% of the patients fulfil the criteria that classifies them as depressive, and, of these, 65% are at clinical risk to commit suicide (33.3% of the total of TBI patients); 25.6% have not met the criteria of depression or suicidal tendencies, and another 25.6% show very low suicide tendency scores. Only 15.6% of the total patients presented only depression without risk of suicide. The neurobehavioural and cognitive profile of the TBI suicide-prone patient shows an emotional person with cognitive difficulties in how they interpret reality, the person tries to understand what is happening around them, but is unable to cope. They show concrete thoughts, although they have difficulties solving problems and have few intellectual resources to cope with their surroundings. They do not know how to distance themselves from the emotional aspects of situations.

Results show GH-related cognitive impairment in patients who develop GH deficiency after TBI and suggest that treatment of GH deficiency would improve cognition. The clinical importance of these findings should be established to better understand the nature, magnitude and meaning of GH-related cognitive impairment in patients who develop GH deficiency after TBI.

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