Smoking and suicidal ideation among college students: Smoking expectancies as potential moderators

Abstract

Objective: In the present study, we sought to establish a link between suicidal ideation (SI) and smoking in college students, determine whether psychopathology accounted for the association, and determine whether smoking expectancies were moderators. Participants: Participants (N = 607) were identified as nonsmokers, exsmokers, infrequent smokers, or daily smokers. Methods: Participants were assessed for smoking patterns, smoking expectancies, psychopathology, SI, and past suicide attempts. Results: Daily smokers had the highest level of SI. There was a dose-response relationship between smoking and SI, such that the higher the daily smoking rate, the greater the SI, even when controlling for depression, alcohol use, and drug use. Trend-level results indicated that at lower smoking rates, elevated smoking-related negative affect reduction (NAR) expectancies were associated with lower SI, while elevated NAR expectancies in combination with higher smoking rates were associated with greater SI. Conclusion: Smoking cessation programs for college students should screen for SI.

Keywords:

• Smoking
• suicidal ideation
• smoking expectancies
• college student smokers

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by internal sources within the Department of Psychology at Louisiana State University (ALC); and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) grant T32DA007238 (MRP). Both Louisiana State University and NIDA had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.