Differentiating Suicide Ideators from Attempters: Violence—A Research Note

Abstract

Which factors distinguish suicide attempters from suicide ideators is a relatively neglected question in suicidology. Data from the 2001 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, encompassing 1,439 youth suicide ideators and 1,097 attempters, was used to explore which factors best differentiate suicide attempters from ideators, with a focus on violence involvement. Measures of violence include the contexts of fights, dating, and weapons carrying. Controls were incorporated for psychiatric disorders, risky sexual behavior, school integration, and demographics. Controlling for the other variables, violence differentiated attempts from ideation: fighting (OR = 2.18) and weapon carrying (OR = 1.13). Psychiatric factors that predicted attempts over ideation included major depression (OR = 1.86), use of cocaine (OR = 2.34), and having a suicide plan (OR = 2.69), while demographic factors included gender, age, residence in the Midwest, and Hispanic, African American, or Asian ethnicity. A supplementary analysis (N = 11,546) determined that violence also helped to differentiate suicide ideators from nonsuicidal youth. Four factors (including violence involvement, eating disorders, and gender consistently) differentiated both between suicide attempts and ideation, and also between suicide ideators and nonsuicidal youth. The link between violence involvement and suicidality is interpreted in terms of the capability for suicide from the interpersonal theory of suicide.

Child abuse and the prevalence of suicide attempts among those reporting suicide ideation

“…Our findings are consistent with past studies that have shown strong associations between the presence of a suicide plan and suicide attempts [3, 12]. While we are unaware of other studies investigating financial strain as a characteristic distinguishing suicide ideators and attempters, previous work has found that financial stressors may contribute to a substantial proportion of suicide attempts [23, 36].…”

“…However, none have examined whether it is a risk factor for acting on suicide ideation. These studies may, therefore, be uninformative to clinicians, as many predictors of suicide ideation do not predict who will attempt suicide [2, 11, 12]. …”

“…Only the presence of a suicide plan [3, 12] and a history of self-harm or suicide have consistently been shown to predict the progression from suicide ideation to an attempt [3, 14, 16, 17]. Factors, such as mental illness [3, 12, 14, 18–21], substance abuse [3, 12, 19], sex [3, 12, 20–22], age [3, 12, 21, 22], marital status [3, 19], social interactions and belonging [14, 19], and life stressors [14, 18] have had conflicting findings. Other potential risk factors, such as financial strain [23, 24] and physical illness [25, 26], have not been studied as factors that may distinguish suicide ideators and attempters.…”

Associations between Film Preferences and Risk Factors for Suicide: An Online Survey

“…Exposure to violent movies and desensitization towards violence could be a component of this process. Correspondingly, a recent study [42] has identified violence, including fighting and weapon carrying, as an appropriate variable to differentiate between suicide ideators and attempters. The results of the present study warrant more research on the link between suicidality and the preference for horror movies.…”

Dealing with difficult days: Functional coping dynamics in self-harm ideation and enactment

“…Despite key theoretical advances (e.g., Interpersonal-Psychological Theory of suicidal Behaviour: Joiner, 2005; The Integrated Motivational-Volitional Model of suicidal behaviour: O'Connor, 2011) our ability to predict, explain, prevent and differentiate between self-harm thoughts and behaviour is arguably unsatisfactory at present (Klonsky and May, 2014;Stack, 2014). Many people have feelings or experiences (e.g., thoughts, urges, mental imagery) that relate to self-harming.…”