States of heightened arousal (e.g., agitation, sleep disturbance) have been repeatedly linked to suicidal thoughts and behaviors, including attempts and death. Studies have further indicated that these states may be particularly pernicious among individuals who evidence high suicidal capability. The objective of this study was to examine the interactive effects of heightened arousal and the capability for suicide in the prospective prediction of death by suicide. We examine this relation beyond the effects of robust predictors of suicide, namely depression and hopelessness.
Participants were drawn from a larger study of undergraduates who completed baseline assessments during their freshman year and were then followed to time of death. The sample in this study only included individuals who had died by suicide (n=96) or other causes (n=542). Proxy measures to assess predictor variables were constructed using items from the MMPI, which was administered at baseline. An independent sample of clinical outpatients (n=was used to evaluate the construct validity of the proxy measures).
Results were in line with expectation: heightened arousal interacted with capability for suicide to prospectively predict death by suicide, such that, as severity of heightened arousal symptoms increased, the likelihood of death by suicide increased among individuals high but not low on capability for suicide.
Limitations include the use of proxy measures, the extended length of follow-up, and the homogeneity of the sample (i.e., primarily White males).
These findings add to an emerging literature that supports the moderating influence of capability for suicide on the relationship between states of heightened arousal on the likelihood of death by suicide.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 November 2024.
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#9,822,116
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Outputs from Journal of Affective Disorders
#5,113
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Outputs of similar age
#86,842
of 300,793 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Affective Disorders
#59
of 183 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 33,779,198 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 70th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 12,813 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 59% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 183 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 67% of its contemporaries.
