Characteristics of Suicide Attempters and Ideators in a Clinical Sample of Substance Users

ABSTRACT

There is little research to distinguish those who attempt suicide and those who only consider suicide, and the role that substance use plays in this progression. We aim to describe clinical correlates of suicide attempters versus ideators in substance users. We examined characteristics of substance users (N = 185) that had either a suicide attempt within the last 6 months (n = 94) or were suicide ideators (n = 91). Suicide attempters displayed significant different clinical profiles to that of non-attemptors. Relative to ideators, attempters had greater scores on impulsivity, the brief psychiatric scale and more likely to be female and a recent psychostimulant user. Logistic regression revealed that male gender was associated with a decreased odds of a previous suicide attempt (OR = 0.37, p < 0.05) and greater impulsivity scores were associated with increased odds of an attempt (OR = 1.15, p < 0.05), although entering interaction terms diminished the role of impulsivity and revealed a significant interaction of alcohol use x depression. While impulsivity was a significant predictor of suicide attempt relative to depression or alcohol use alone, this reduced when considering interactions between psychological characteristics and substance use, whereby the effect of alcohol use on the likelihood of a recent suicide attempt varied at different levels of depression.

KEYWORDS:

• Suicide attempt
• substance use
• alcohol
• suicide ideators
• impulsivity
• depression

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia in the form of a Project Grant (TS, GS, PT), a Practitioner Research Fellowship (PH) and a Centre of Research Excellence in Substance Use and Mental Health Postdoctural Research Fellowship (KM).