Archives of Suicide Research: Official Journal of the International Academy for Suicide Research

OBJECTIVE: Few studies have explored the impact that self-harm has on family members, with none specifically focussing on physical and psychosomatic responses following a family member's high-risk self-harm Therefore, this study aims to explore the health impact of experiencing a family member's high-risk self-harm. METHODS: Participants represented family members of consecutive cases of self-harm, who were recruited from the Suicide Support and Information System: A Case-Control Study (SSIS-ACE)...

OBJECTIVE: How social support (SS) affects the odds of suicide attempt among American Indian/Alaska Native youth in New Mexico and is modified by school location and metropolitan status. METHODS: Multiple Logistic Regression for complex design was used to produce the adjusted odds of suicide attempt by SS using the New Mexico Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey (NM-YRRS) for 2011 (n = 2,730), 2013 (n = 3,171), and 2015 (n = 2,604) while adjusting for age, grade, gender, and maternal education level...

OBJECTIVES: To assess possession of household firearms among veterans receiving mental health care and the frequency of their discussions with clinicians about firearms. METHODS: We surveyed random samples of veterans receiving mental health care in each of five purposively chosen, geographically diverse VA facilities; 677 (50% of recipients) responded. RESULTS: 45.3% (95% CI 41.2, 49.3) of veteran respondents reported household firearms; 46...

Aspects of social integration including religion, and residential stability have often been found to serve as protective factors against suicide in sociological analyses. However, empirical research on Canadian indigenous suicidality has neglected these dimensions of integration. The present study fills this gap, while controlling for other major predictors of suicide ideation. METHODS: Data are from a national representative sample (N= 15,294) from the 2012 Aboriginal Peoples Survey...

OBJECTIVE: To estimate a network model of risk and resilience factors of suicidal ideation among veterans. METHODS: Two network models of suicidal ideation among OIF/OEF/OND veterans (N = 276) incorporated key disorders, traumatic stress, and resilience constructs to contextualize suicidal ideation. RESULTS: Childhood trauma was positively connected with suicidal ideation and harassment and inversely connected with social support and distress tolerance...

OBJECTIVE: Acute Suicidal Affective Disturbance (ASAD) is a suicide-specific, episodic clinical entity that is theorized to characterize acute suicide risk. Little work has examined the role of ASAD in mental health conditions linked to suicide risk. Thus, the current study examined whether depression, social anxiety, panic, and alcohol-related problems were related to suicide risk via ASAD history. METHODS: 527 undergraduates completed an online survey. RESULTS: Depression, social anxiety, and alcohol problem risk (but not panic) were robustly, significantly related to suicide risk, but only social anxiety and depression were robustly related to ASAD history...

OBJECTIVE: This review highlights proposed suicide typologies and identifies areas of future research. METHODS: The current study is an illustrative, rather than exhaustive, qualitative review of theoretical and empirically derived typologies of suicide decedents. RESULTS: Theoretical and empirical typologies of suicide delineate between groups of suicide decedents based on individual, motivational, psychiatric, interpersonal, socio-demographic, and other variables...

OBJECTIVE: Research supports the notion that alcohol intoxication is a risk-factor for deliberate self-harm (DSH). However, the underlying mechanisms for this relationship are poorly understood. We aimed to determine whether alcohol-induced dissociation mediated alcohol's effects on DSH. METHODS: We used data from a dose-response study of alcohol intoxication and DSH to test the proposed model. Participants were assigned to reach target blood-alcohol concentrations (BAC) ranging from 0...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to systemically review the literature regarding self-harm, emotion regulation, and experiential avoidance. METHOD: Articles were identified through systematic searches of several databases using combinations of the phrases "emotion regulation" AND "experiential avoidance" AND "self-harm," or "self-injury," and "BPD" or "Borderline Personality Disorder." Additional searches were conducted inclusive of terms related to experiential avoidance and emotion regulation, as well as other disorders related to self-harm...

BACKGROUND: Previous research has documented the rise in rates of suicidal behaviors following media reports of celebrity suicide. Whereas most research has focused on documenting and analyzing suicide rates, little is known about more subtle psychological effects of celebrity suicide on the public, such as despair and feelings of abandonment. The Internet has revolutionized the responses to news reports, enabling immediate and anonymous responses potentially reflecting these psychological processes...

OBJECTIVE: Elevated suicide risk among veteran populations remains a significant public health concern. However, few suicide assessment measures have been validated for veterans. The current study evaluated the reliability and validity of the Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL) scores among veteran populations. METHODS: The participants included male veterans (N = 421) from a broad range of ages, combat exposures, and history of suicide attempts. Participants completed the RFL and a set of additional self-report measures of relevant constructs in a cross-sectional design...

Research has recognized the importance of understanding the social representations about the functions of deliberate self-harm, particularly in the context of clinical intervention. In addition, parents can play a relevant role in the rehabilitation of adolescents with these behaviours. However, there are few studies that focused on the description and comparison of the social representations about these functions, particularly in families. This article aimed to analyse the social representations about the functions of deliberate self-harm from adolescents and their parents...

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to include youth, parents, researchers, and clinicians in the identification of feasible and acceptable strategies for teen suicide screening in the pediatric emergency department (ED). METHODS: Concept mapping methodology was used to elicit stakeholder responses. RESULTS: Regarding the most important result of suicide screening for teens in the pediatric ED, suicide prevention and education for parents, friends, and community members was rated easiest to implement, while short and long-term follow-up and treatment was rated most important...

Recent standardized nomenclature has suggested distinctions among aborted, interrupted, and actual suicide attempts. This study examined differences in self-reported symptoms among individuals with a history of aborted, interrupted, and actual suicide attempts. 167 young adults with a history of suicidality completed self-report measures of suicide attempt history and current symptoms, a clinical interview assessing past suicidal behavior, and a pain tolerance task. Only 78.8% of participants who initially reported a suicide attempt history were classified as suicide attempters following the clinical interview...

Among the different research methods on suicide notes, the theoretical conceptual approach allows a particularly thorough understanding of the suicidal act. The present study focuses on 78 suicide notes collected in Geneva, Switzerland, between 2006 and 2014. The socio-demographic and medical data of the writers' notes were collected. The conceptual content of the notes was analyzed by two independent raters using the Leenaars method. The results showed that the concepts that appeared most frequently in the notes were: Inability to adjust, Rejection-aggression, Unbearable pain, and Ego...

The aim of this study was to test the Three-Step Theory (3ST) of suicide in a sample of college students in China (N = 1,097). All participants completed a battery of questionnaires indexing psychological pain, hopelessness, connectedness, suicide capacity, suicide ideation, and suicide attempt. The prevalence of suicide ideation and suicide attempt among the sample were 21.42% and 3.83%, respectively. The hierarchical regression analysis showed that psychological pain and hopelessness interacted to predict suicide ideation, and that connectedness was the most protective against ideation in those high on both pain and hopelessness...

This study used Texas state vital statistics records, 2006-2015, to examine firearm use rates among 28,010 suicide decedents by residential location (urbanized vs. all others). Firearms were responsible for 44% of all teenage suicides and 76-90% and 50-60% of suicides of men and women aged 60 + years, respectively, and firearm use rates remained steady for both genders during the study period. Logistic regression analysis showed a significantly higher firearm use rate (AOR = 1.35, 95% CI = 1.28-1.42) among decedents who resided in nonurbanized areas...

OBJECTIVE: Despite increased use of behavioral analogues to identify casual mechanisms of self-injurious behavior (e.g. suicide attempts; non-suicidal self-injury), little is known about the impact on participants. The current study examined the impact of a specific behavior analogue, Self-Aggressive Paradigm (SAP), on participant affect. METHODS: Community participants (n = 507) reported several affective ratings before and after completing SAP task procedures...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the impact of widely publicized suicides on the Werther and Papageno Effects using internet search trends. METHOD: A list of widely publicized suicides from 2010 through 2018 was compiled along with dates of death for each of these individuals. Google.com/trends data was then collected for searches for "how to suicide" and "suicide prevention" for 14 days prior to a widely publicized suicide/14 days after a widely publicized suicide and 7 days prior to a widely publicized suicide/7 days after a widely publicized suicide...

OBJECTIVE: Suicide risk on college campuses remains a pervasive problem. Structural deficits in current clinical care models often result in sub-optimal treatment for suicidal students. This study reports on the feasibility, acceptability and utility of the Safety Planning Intervention (SPI), a brief, empirically-validated, clinician-administered suicide prevention intervention, in a university counseling center (UCC) setting. METHODS: Twelve university counseling center direct service staff completed a 2-hour training in SPI...