Suicide in United States Army Personnel, 1983–1984

Rothberg, Joseph M.; Rock, Nicholas L.; Shaw, Jon A.; Jones, Franklin D.

doi:10.1093/milmed/153.2.61

Cited by 23 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In the Army suicide studies (Rothberg & Jones, 1987;Rock, 1988;Rothberg et al, 1988), the female suicide rates have been similar to males and have followed the same declining pattern (15.2 in 1977-1978, 9.9 in 1983-1984). The Army studies speculate that "efforts to improve the status of women in the Army played a role in this reduction but we lack data to test this hypothesis (Rothberg et al, 1988). "…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…The relative risk for white male suicides over black male suicides was approximately 1.5. For the Army (Rothberg, et al, 1988), the relative risk for white male suicides over black male suicides is higher, at 2.3. In the U.S. (Statistical Abstracts of the United States), the relative risk for white versus black male suicides between 17 and 54 years of age was approximately 1.6.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Suicide research for U.S. Army personnel (Rothberg & Jones, 1987;Rock, 1988;Rothberg et al, 1988), indicates that Army suicide rates have been in steady decline since -1976 the annual crude suicide rate was 16.4; in 1977-1978 it was 14.8; in 1979-1980 it was 11.6; in 1981-1982 (with late reports) it was 11.4; and in 1983-1984 it was 10.00 (Rothberg et al, 1988)." The implications are that the increases found in the Navy over a similar period cannot be due to a military-wide set of circumstances.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Traditionally, the rates of self-inflicted deaths among active-duty U.S. military personnel have been lower than the rates among their civilian counterparts (Chaffee, 1982;Datel & Johnson, 1979;Rothberg, Rock, Shaw & Jones, 1988). This has been attributed to a number of factors, including the uniform availability of medical and psychiatric care (Palinkas, 1985), the "healthy worker effect" (Burr & Palinkas, 1988), the formal and informal mechanisms for screening of personnel (Datel & Johnson, 1979;Grigg, 1988;Rock, 1988), and the organizational culture of the military (Hayes & Johnson, 1979).…”

Section: Suicides In Active-duty Enlisted Navy Personnelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although studies of suicides among Navy personnel have been conducted in the past (Chaffee, 1982;Palinkas, 1985;Chaffee & Coben 1983;Spaulding & Edwards, 1975;Schuckit & Gunderson, 1974), this research has not been as consistent or as comprehensive as the biennial surveys of suicide among Army personnel conducted by the Division of Neuropsychiatry at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (Datel & Johnson, 1979;Rothberg, Rock, Shaw & Jones, 1988;Datel, Jones & Esposito, 1981;Datel & Jones, 1982;Rothberg, 2 Rock & Jones, 1984;Rothberg & Jones, 1987). A comparable program of research among Navy personnel would help to resolve some major issues.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Suicides In Active-Duty Enlisted Navy Personnel

Kawahara¹,

Palinkas²,

Burr³

et al. 1989

PsycEXTRA Dataset

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Althou"Ir studies of suicidcs among Navy* prs6nnel *1 h' cn cducted in the-p p " f is mhi not "ecni as consistent or as comprehensive as the biennial surveys of suicide among Army periml conductcd by the Division of Ncuropsychialry at Walter Rccd Army Institute of Research. A comparable program of research among Navy personnel would help to resolve some major issues.For instance, studies of the incidence of completed suicide and destructive behavior in the Navy have bccn limited by the lack of comprehensive data on population at risk.Obiective \'The two objectives in this paper were first, to identify potential demographic and service-related risk factors associated with completed suicides among enlisted Navy personnel during a 12-year period, 1974 to 1985, and, second, to examine the severity of rates of completed suicide in the U.S. Navy relative to similar rates in the United States general population and determine the extent to which patterns of completed suicide in the two populations were similar to, or different from, one another.Cases of completed suicid-, among U.S. Navy enlisted personnel occurring during I January 1974 to 31 December 1985 were identified from a computerized Enlisted Service History File edited and maintained by the Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) in San Diego, California. The case selection criteria were the presence of both a code of 952 (died) in the last event and a code of 890 (suicide) in the Department of Defense Loss Code. The Enlisted Service History File also was u .ilizcd to calculate the person years at risk during the study period for all active-duty enlisted -personnel.. .Age-specific. and. age-adjutted'Ifi Ortality rates were calculated, for, the study population. (5,657,150 person years). Data for the total United States were obtained from the Statistial Abstracts of the United States. Variables analyzed in this study included age, sex, race, occupation, and year dicd. Occupational classifications were grouped into five categories based on similarity of assigned tasks and work environment. ResultsDuring the years 1974 through 1985, there was a total of 373 confirmed suicides for an average of 32 cases per year based on the criteria described above. The suicide rate was 6.59 per 100,000 person-years. Even though 80 percent of suicides were under the age of 30 years, no consistent association between age and suicide was observed. The Navy suicide rates were lower than in the U.S., but, from 1977 to 1983, the Navy suicide rates in the 17 to 24 age group have been showing a trend toward increasing while the U.S. rates appear to be stabilizing or even slightly decreasing.Female suicide rates are significantly lower (50%) than that found in males. The rates of white suicides tended to be higher than for nonwhites, but the differences were not significant. In the U.S. population, whites have a significantly higher suicide rate than blacks. Age-related suicide risk among men in the Navy and in the U.S. population appear to differ by race. Only four of the 109 specific occup...

show abstract