Body Trust and Agitation: Pathways to Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors

Abstract

Research has linked agitation and low body trust to suicidal thoughts and behaviors. We investigated a pathway with agitation accounting for the relationship between body trust and suicidality. 511 individuals recruited via MTurk (Study 1) and 167 undergraduate students (62.9% with suicide attempt history) (Study 2) completed measures of study variables. For ideation, the proposed pathway was significant across samples, as was a pathway with agitation predicting and body trust mediating. In Study 1, agitation explained the relationship between body trust and attempt history. In Study 2, neither independent variable was related to attempt history. Results suggest body trust is independently associated with suicidal ideation. Results were discrepant regarding suicide attempt history, necessitating future studies.

Keywords:

• agitation
• body trust
• suicidal ideation
• suicide
• suicide attempts

Notes

¹ The pattern of bivariate associations and overall results were unchanged when analyses were repeated with the non-transformed suicidal ideation variable.

² Though the Study 2 sample was younger and had a larger proportion of females than the Study 1 sample, age and gender were unrelated to outcome variables in either sample and thus were not controlled for in analyses.

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. NSF 1449440. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This work was also supported in part by the Military Suicide Research Consortium (MSRC), an effort supported by the Department of Defense (W81XWH-10-2-0181; W81XWH-16-2-0003). Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the Military Suicide Research Consortium or the Department of Defense.