Alice in Suicideland: Exploring the Suicidal Ideation Mechanism through the Sense of Connectedness and Help-Seeking Behaviors

Abstract

On average, one person dies by suicide every 40 seconds, recent data show. Yet, extant studies have largely focused on the risk factors for suicidal behaviors, not so much on the thought process and the interactions of factors leading up to a suicide attempt. To understand how suicide thoughts arise and persist inside one’s mind, and look for actionable solutions to reduce the risk of suicidal ideation in young adults, the most at-risk group of deaths by suicide. A multifiltering information mechanism called Mindsponge serves as the theoretical basis. Bayesian analysis with the Hamiltonian MCMC technique (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) was run on a dataset of multinational students (N = 268) in an international university in Japan. Item 9 in the PHQ-9 was used to survey suicidal ideation in students. The associations among four main variables, namely (i) suicidal ideation, (ii) help-seeking willingness (informal and formal sources), (iii) social connectedness, and (iv) being an international student, were tested in four models. Social connectedness is negatively associated with suicidal ideation (μ_(ToSC_Suicide) = -0.13 and σ_(ToSC_Suicide) = 0.02), but when the interaction with international students is added, the social connectedness’s effect on suicidal ideation becomes less impactful (μ_(ToSC*Inter_Dom_Suicide) = 0.01 and σ_(ToSC*Inter_Dom_Suicide) = 0.01). Social connectedness on help-seeking behavior among international students is also negative (μ_(ToSC*Inter_Dom_InformalHelp) = -0.01 and σ_(ToSC*Inter_Dom_InformalHelp) = 0.01). Meanwhile, informal help is negatively associated with suicide (μ_(InformalHelp_Suicide) = -0.51 and σ_(InformalHelp_Suicide) = 0.11) whereas formal help is positive (μ_(FormalHelp_Suicide) = 0.08 and σ_(FormalHelp_Suicide) = 0.10). The findings support our assumption on three fundamental conditions for preventing suicidal thoughts: (i) a high degree of belongingness, (ii) accessibility to help-related information, and (iii) healthy perceived cultural responses towards mental health. The implications are clear: to effectively tackle suicidal ideation among students, and broadly in other populations, requires a set of systematically coordinated programs

Suicide-related Thoughts and Behaviors among International Students

“…In addition to mental health, other risk factors for suicide include alcohol and drug abuse, access to psychiatric treatment, violent behaviors, implicit/explicit attentional bias, genes, attitudes toward suicide, help-seeking behavior, physical illness, marital status, age, and sex (Mann, 2002;Barraclough et al, 1974;Mann et al 2005;Franklin et al, 2017). Franklin et al (2017 also have summarized the previous theories in their meta-analysis, including biological (Oquendo et al, 2014) and numerous psychological theories, including hopelessness (Beck et al, 1985); escape from aversive self-awareness (Baumeister, 1990); psychache (Shneidman, 1993); emotion dysregulation (Linehan, 1993); interpersonal relationships (Joiner, 2005;Van Orden et al, 2010), integrated motivational-volitional model (O'Connor & Kirtley, 2018, Mindsponge model (Nguyen et al, 2021) and many other theories.…”

“…"Whether they had ever seriously considered ending their life within the past 12 months." 12.5% of studies utilized Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), a 9-item instrument to screen for depression, as their suicide ideation assessment (Nguyen et al, 2019;Nguyen et al, 2021), while another 12.5% of studies used the 10-item Suicide Ideation Scale (SIS), an assessment examines the presence or absence of suicidal thinking and prior suicide attempts. as the assessment.…”

Building an “eco-surplus culture” among urban consumers and restaurant settings for reducing wildlife trade

“…In my opinion, the culture could be changed by modifying the cost-benefit judgement of urban consumers and restaurant owners [8][9][10]. First, making them realize the adverse impacts of biodiversity loss induced by wildmeat consumption is vital.…”

On the value of the mindsponge*bayesvl approach to researching humanities and social sciences phenomena

“…Three significant findings in multiple disciplines have been discovered using the mindsponge mechanism and the bayesvl package. First, we offered a new information-processing approach to study the formulation mechanism of suicidal ideation in an individual's mind [7]. Second, we proposed a psycho-religious mechanism to explain the psychology of suicide attackers using a trustbased evaluation mechanism and cost-benefit judgment among religious individuals [8].…”

“…Then, the procedure is repeated accordingly. We recommend the user refer to the methodology of three major findings indicated above to understand better how to utilize the mindsponge mechanism and bayesvl package [7,8,9]. Future studies are also valuable sources for reference.…”