Although a relationship between experience of problematic life events and suicidal behaviour has been recognized during last decades, few studies of life events have been realized among depressive adults.

The aim of this study was to determine the correlations between life events and suicidal attempts among depressive adult patients.

Eighty adult outpatients were recruited from the psychiatric department of Farhat Hached hospital of sousse (in Tunisia). All patients were followed up for a Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) according to the DSM IV criteria. They also were in remission for at least four weeks. For life events we used the EVE scale of Ferreri which permitted to assess event nature, event number and patient strategies in front of stressful life events.

The gender ratio of the sample was 1.35 and the mean age was 44.4 ± 12.9 years.

Twenty five percent of the sample have committed at least one suicidal attempt.

Suicidal attempts were positively correlated with the total number of life events (p = 0.001), the number of early life events (p = 0.024) and the number of stressful life events (p < 0.001). Patients with a history of suicidal attempts were more likely to cope negatively with life events (p < 0.001).

To prevent suicide, psychotherapies focusing on stress coping could be a good therapeutic alternative among patients with MDD.