Suicide from intimate partner and other relationship conflicts: demographic and clinical correlates’

Abstract

Background

A significant portion of suicides are precipitated by interpersonal relationship problems.

Aims

To examine demographic and clinical correlates of any intimate partner conflicts (IPC) and other interpersonal conflicts (OPC) as suicide precipitants.

Methods

We analyzed data on 92,805 (72,628 male; 20,177 female) adult suicide decedents from the 2017 to 2019 U.S. National Violent Death Reporting System, using multinomial and binary logistic regression models. We included case examples from coroners/medical examiner (CME) and law enforcement (LE) agency reports.

Results

Of all decedents, 23.6% had IPC and 8.0% had OPC as a suicide precipitant. Compared to those without any relationship conflict, those who had IPC or OPC were younger and more likely to have had previous suicide attempt(s), alcohol/other substance use problems, and job/finance/housing and legal problems. Compared to those with OPC, those with IPC were more likely to be male and Hispanic and had higher odds of previous suicide attempt, depression diagnosis, alcohol problems, and more acute crises. CME/LE reports showed distress of divorce/break-up, other life stressors, prior suicide attempt(s), alcohol/other substance involvement, and/or loss of family support.

Conclusions

Access to behavioral health treatment for those at risk of suicide in the face of IPC or OPC is essential for suicide prevention.

Keywords:

• Suicide
• intimate partner
• depression
• alcohol/substance use
• legal problem

Acknowledgments

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) administers the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) in conjunction with participating NVDRS states. CDC provided the NVDRS Restricted Access Data used in this study to the authors. Study findings and conclusions are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the official position of CDC or of the participating NVDRS states.

Ethics statement

Ethical approval for this study by the University of Texas at Austin’s Institutional Review Board was not necessary because this study was based on de-identified decedent data. Informed consent procedure was not necessary, either, because the data pertained to decedents.

Author contributions

All three authors made substantial contributions and approved the final version. NGC and BYC did the literature review. NGC conducted statistical analyses, and CNM provided statistical consultation. NGC and BYC drafted the paper, and all three edited the final version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The authors received support from the University of Texas at Austin’s internal research fund.