What predicts suicidality among psychologists? An examination of risk and resilience

Abstract

Psychologists may have a uniquely high risk for suicide. We examined whether, among 172 psychologists, factors predicting suicide risk among the general population (e.g., gender and mental illness), occupational factors (e.g., burnout and secondary traumatic stress), and past trauma predicted suicidality. We also tested whether resilience and meaning in life were negatively related to suicidality and whether resilience buffered relationships between risk factors and suicidality. Family history of mental illness, number of traumas, and lifetime depression/anxiety predicted higher suicidality, whereas resilience predicted lower suicidality. At higher levels of resilience, the relationship between family history of suicide and suicidality was stronger.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Greg W. Edgin, Meera B. Patel, Sal M. Ibrahim, and Katie Califano for attempting to reduce the length of the first draft of this manuscript. No funding sources were utilized for this study.

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/63xbc http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/8JZ59, reference number [reference number].