Military personnel compared to multiple suicide attempters: Interpersonal theory of suicide constructs

ABSTRACT

The current study aimed to address the discrepancy between suicide rates in the military and general population by comparing facets of the interpersonal theory of suicide between civilians with multiple suicide attempts and U.S. military personnel. Military personnel exhibited higher levels of capability for suicide but lower levels of perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness than civilian multiple attempters. When comparing only personnel endorsing ideation and civilian multiple attempters, the significant difference for capability remained, but the differences for perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness became nonsignificant. Results suggest the emergence of ideation places personnel at a greater risk for suicide than many civilian multiple attempters.

Notes

¹To ensure that the effects were not better accounted for by covariates, we ran analyses of covariance, including age, gender, race (White vs. non-White), and income given the demographic differences between the samples. Soldiers in the full military sample exhibited lower mean levels of both TB (18.70 vs 29.20; F = 41.82; p < .001; _pη² = .052) and PB (7.89 vs 14.80; F = 100.24; p < .001; _pη² = .112) than did civilians with multiple suicide attempts, after accounting for gender, age, race, and income. However, soldiers with current suicidal ideation did not significantly differ from civilians with multiple suicide attempts on mean levels of TB (31.02 vs 29.20; F = 2.84; p = .094; _pη² = .021) or PB (13.11 vs 14.80; F = .19; p = .664; _pη² = .001).