Better off with you: Exploring congruity between caregivers’ and Veterans’ experience of efforts to cope with suicide

ABSTRACT

The interpersonal theory of suicide posits people are more likely to consider suicide when they perceive themselves as alone and as a burden. However, there is limited research on whether these self-perceptions reflect caregiver experiences. As part of a larger study of collaborative safety planning, 43 Veteran/caregiver dyads (N = 86 individuals) completed measures of belongingness and burdensomeness, caregiver burden, family problem solving, and suicide-related coping. We conducted dyad-level actor interdependence models allowing two types of social coping (i.e., general problem solving and suicide-specific coping) to predict Veteran’s self-views and caregiver interpersonal perceptions. Results suggested that Veteran social coping predicted lower Veteran thwarted belonginess and burdensomeness and caregiver involvement in problem solving was similarly associated with their own lower caregiver emotional burden. But examination of cross-partner effects demonstrated that greater Veteran coping was associated with greater time burden for caregivers. Findings suggest that social coping is associated with positive perceptions at the individual level (i.e., Veterans and caregivers to themselves) but does not indicate positive effects at the partner level. Clinicians working with Veterans may wish to involve supports in care to encourage effective collaboration that meets both caregiver/recipient needs.

KEYWORDS:

• Veteran
• interpersonal theory of suicide
• perceived burdensomeness
• caregiver burden
• coping

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the Action Editors (Drs. Bush and Smolenski) and the two anonymous reviewers for their many helpful comments and suggestions on this manuscript.

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 available from the principal investigator, M.G., upon reasonable request. Analytic syntax and outputs are available from the corresponding author, D.C., upon reasonable request.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

Manuscript preparation is supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Academic Affiliations [Advanced Fellowship in Mental Illness Research and Treatment] (I01-RX002432).