Exploring the Content of Suicidality among Military Personnel and Veterans

Abstract

Previous research and theorizing have long sought to describe reliable typologies of suicide risk, particularly regarding soldier and veteran military samples. In the present study, we examined suicidal content from two samples of outpatient suicidal military personnel—one a sample of active-duty infantry soldiers (n = 89) and the other a sample of veterans (n = 62), using the first page of the Suicide Status Form (SSF; Jobes, 2016). Descriptive statistics examined both the qualitative and quantitative SSF-based responses between these cohorts. Preliminary findings showed different psychological content profiles between these samples: active-duty soldiers reported being more “self-focused” and “escape-oriented” in responses related to suicide, whereas veterans reported being more “other-focused” in responses related to suicide. This study suggests that despite similarities resulting from military experience, active-duty soldiers and veterans likely experience suicide risk differently. The main goal of this study was to differentiate clinically relevant suicidal responses on the exact same stimulus tool, which can be useful in generating hypotheses to be tested in future research about similarities and differences in suicide risk presentations between active-duty soldiers and veterans.

Keywords:

• Suicide
• depression
• military
• veterans
• soldier
• servicemember

Disclosure statement

A portion of this work was supported by the Department of the Army through the federal grant award W81XWH-11-1-0164, awarded and administered by the Military Operational Medicine Research Program (MOMRP)—Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01300169. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, the U.S. Army Medical Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the United States Government.

Another portion of this work was supported by the Military Suicide Research Consortium (MSRC), an effort supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs under Award No. (W81XWH-10-2-0178). The opinions, interpretations, conclusions are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the MSRC or the Department of Defense.

A portion of this work was supported with resources and the use of facilities at the Robley Rex Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Louisville, KY.

Nicole Caulfield is now a graduate student in Clinical Psychology at The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS.