This Systematic Review is thought to deepen the relation between sociodemographic variables most associated with suicidal behaviour and suicide methods in Europe and America. A research was made from ...articles and reviews published between 2005-2015 in PsycINFO, Medline, Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, and SciELO. Thanks to it, we retrieved 5,222 records which were analysed against the inclusion (e.g., any design of the study, published in English or Spanish) and quality criteria, including 53 studies in the review. In these results it is noticeable how men (36% of the studies) and elderly (28% of the studies) commit suicide more frequently. Women (30% of the studies) and young people (17% of the studies) have more attempts and suicidal behaviour. The most commonly used methods among them include hanging (24% of the studies), firearm (17% of the studies), and precipitation (6% of the studies); unemployment (17% of the studies), rural life (9% of the studies), a marital status other than marriage (15% of the studies), and low education (23% of the studies) are also closely associated with both suicide and suicidal behaviour. Consequently, important connections can be concluded when carrying out psychological autopsies, which should be taken into account due to their clear implications in personal and material damage that must be elucidated judicially, clarifying the specific occurrence as suicide, homicide, or accident.
Most mental disorders, when examined independently, are associated with an elevated risk for suicide attempt. However, mental disorders often co-occur, and that co-occurrence is well explained by ...models where specific mental disorders are understood as manifestations of latent dimensions of psychopathology. To date, it remains unclear whether the risk of suicide attempt is due to specific mental disorders, to specific dimensions of psychopathology (that is, internalizing and externalizing dimensions), to a general psychopathology factor or to a combination of these explanations. In a large nationally representative prospective survey, the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), we used structural equation modeling to examine the shared and specific effects of Axis I and Axis II disorders on the occurrence of suicide attempts in the general population and among individuals with a lifetime history of suicidal ideation. Effects of mental disorders on the risk of suicide attempt were exerted almost exclusively through a general psychopathology factor representing the shared effect across all mental disorders. Effects of remitted psychiatric disorders on the risk of suicide attempt were fully mediated by current mental disorders. Similar patterns of associations were found in individuals with suicidal ideation. These results held when using different approaches to modeling psychiatric comorbidity. Our findings underscore the importance of adopting dimensional approaches to comorbidity in the study of suicidal behavior. Because mental disorders increase the risk of suicide attempt through a general psychopathology liability, this dimension should be considered as an important therapeutic target to substantially advance suicide prevention.
In addition to the unstable political situation, Lebanon had experienced a cycle of wars, local armed conflicts, terrorist attacks, and crises (lack of clean water, recurrent power failure, and waste ...mismanagement, in addition to the growing number of unemployed people, as the number of Syrian refugees has dramatically increased, and led to competition for jobs with locals. All these factors make the Lebanese population prone to mental disorders, particularly suicide, without clear management policies. This study aims to validate the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (CSSRS), and determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation and associated factors among a Lebanese nationally representative sample of adolescents from 9th to 12th grades.
Participants were 1810 adolescents who enrolled in this cross-sectional study (January-May 2019), using a proportionate random sample of schools from all Lebanese Mohafazat. The Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale was used to screen for suicidal ideation.
The results showed that 28.9% had some type of suicidal ideation 95% CI 26.7-31.1%. The CSSRS items converged on a one-factor solution, accounting for a total of 85.40% of the variance (α
= 0.966). Higher psychological abuse (Beta = 0.041), child physical abuse (Beta = 0.030), alcohol dependence (Beta = 0.062), social fear (Beta = 0.028), victimization/bullying score (Beta = 0.028), impulsivity (Beta = 0.028) and internet addiction (Beta = 0.010) scores were significantly associated with higher suicidal ideation. Same applies to adolescents whose parents are separated compared to living together (Beta = 0.992) and in females compared to males (0.311). On another hand, a higher age (Beta = - 0.182) was significantly associated with lower suicidal ideation.
This study provides insights about suicidal ideation among Lebanese adolescents and related risk factors, such as child psychological and physical abuse, alcohol use disorders, social fear, bullying and victimization, impulsivity, and internet addiction.
The War Within Ramchand, Rajeev; Acosta, Joie; Burns, Rachel M ...
02/2011
eBook
Open access
The increase in suicides among military personnel has raised concern. This book reviews the current evidence on suicide epidemiology in the military, identifies state-of-the-art suicide-prevention ...programs, describes and catalogs suicide-prevention activities in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and across each service, and recommends ways to ensure that the activities in DoD and across each service reflect state-of-the-art prevention science.
Reactive control is the cognitive ability to adjust thoughts and behaviors when encountering conflict. We investigated how this ability to manage conflict and stress distinguishes suicidal from ...nonsuicidal individuals. The hypothesis was that suicidal individuals would show poorer reactive control when faced with conflict generated by emotional than neutral stimuli. Hence, individuals with a lifetime history of suicide ideation or attempt and nonsuicidal controls were tested in cognitive and emotional Simon tasks. We examined the congruency sequence effect (CSE) in the Simon tasks as an indication of the efficiency of reactive control in resolving conflict. Whereas controls demonstrated significant CSEs in both tasks, suicide attempters showed a significant CSE in the cognitive task but not in the emotional task. Suicide ideators, on the other hand, displayed marginally significant CSEs in both tasks. Comparing groups with pairwise comparison demonstrated that the difference in CSE was significant only in the emotional task between attempters and controls. Our findings of attempters' inefficiency in adjusting reactive control during the emotional task reflect cognitive inflexibility in coping with conflicting situations during which suicidal individuals become vulnerable to suicide attempts in states of negative emotion.
Background Chronic feelings of emptiness is an under-researched symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD), despite indications it may be central to the conceptualisation, course, and outcome ...of BPD treatment. This systematic review aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of chronic feelings of emptiness in BPD, identify key findings, and clarify differences between chronic feelings of emptiness and related constructs like depression, hopelessness, and loneliness. Method A PRISMA guided systematic search of the literature identified empirical studies with a focus on BPD or BPD symptoms that discussed chronic feelings of emptiness or a related construct. Results Ninety-nine studies met criteria for inclusion in the review. Key findings identified there were significant difficulties in defining and measuring chronic emptiness. However, based on the studies reviewed, chronic emptiness is a sense of disconnection from both self and others. When experienced at frequent and severe levels, it is associated with low remission for people with BPD. Emptiness as a construct can be separated from hopelessness, loneliness and intolerance of aloneness, however more research is needed to explicitly investigate these experiences. Chronic emptiness may be related to depressive experiences unique to people with BPD, and was associated with self-harm, suicidality, and lower social and vocational function. Conclusions and implications We conclude that understanding chronic feelings of emptiness is central to the experience of people with BPD and treatment focusing on connecting with self and others may help alleviate a sense of emptiness. Further research is required to provide a better understanding of the nature of chronic emptiness in BPD in order to develop ways to quantify the experience and target treatment. Systematic review registration number: CRD42018075602.
Background: Mental health professionals encounter numerous difficulties when working with suicidal clients. To understand these difficulties in clinical practice better, a valid instrument measuring ...them is needed. Aims: This study aimed to translate the Difficulties in Suicidal Behaviors Intervention Questionnaire (DSBQ) to Slovene, validate it, and explore Slovenian professionals’ experiences with it. Method: The participants were 106 professionals (19 men, 87 women), aged 26–66 years. Apart from the DSBQ, scales on attitudes toward suicide prevention and coping strategies in difficult clinical situations were used. The data were collected between October 2017 and January 2019. Results: Although slightly diverging from the originally reported component structure, the Slovene translation of the DSBQ measures difficulties in working with suicidal clients with acceptable/good reliability and sensitivity, and adequate construct validity. Slovenian professionals most commonly experience difficulties related to working with children, followed by technical, system and setting, and other types of difficulties. Limitations: The sample of participants was relatively heterogeneous. Conclusion: Further studies of the DSBQ structure and validity, as well as difficulties, especially those related to working with children/adolescents and facing the theme of death, are warranted. Considering the difficulties most frequently reported in this investigation, more efforts are also needed in Slovenia to address technical and logistic aspects.
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Researchers recently have suggested that coping flexibility (i.e., an individual's ability to modify and change coping strategies depending on the context) may be an important way to investigate ...coping. The availability of numerous coping strategies may be an important precursor to coping flexibility, given that flexibility can only be obtained if an individual is able to access and use different coping strategies. Typically, studies examining the use of coping strategies compute means-based analyses, which assess not only what strategies are used but also how much they are used. Thus, there is limited ability to differentiate between individuals who use a lot of strategies infrequently, and individuals who use only one or two strategies a lot. One way to address this confound is to count the number of strategies that an individual uses without attention to how frequently they use them (i.e., a count-based approach). The present longitudinal study compares a count-based model and a means-based model of coping and adjustment among undergraduates (N = 1132). An autoregressive cross-lagged path analysis revealed that for the count-based approach, using a greater number of positive coping strategies led to more positive adjustment and less suicide ideation over time than using a smaller number of positive coping strategies. Further, engagement in a greater number of negative coping strategies predicted more depressive symptoms and poorer emotion regulation over time. In comparison, the means-based model revealed identical results for negative coping strategies; however, engagement in more frequent positive coping strategies did not predict better positive adjustment over time. Thus, a count-based approach offers a novel way to examine how the number of coping strategies that individuals use can help promote adjustment among university students.
In this issue, Edwards and colleagues (1) report on a study that examines twins, siblings, and half siblings in the large Swedish national registry database to estimate the heritability of fatal and ...nonfatal suicidal behavior. The size of this database offers the advantage that they could examine genetic and emironmental contributions to nonfatal suicide attempt and suicide death separately, and also in women and men as well as in youths and the older population. The authors found moderate heritability of both suicide attempt and suicide death, and in both men and women. The genetic load appears to be greater in women, both in youth and adulthood. By examining fatal and nonfatal suicidal behavior, Edwards et al. were able to show that there is substantial genetic overlap. From the opposite perspective, there is incomplete genetic overlap. The lack of total genetic overlap means that there may be important differences between the two types of suicidal behavior.
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