Study Identifies Risk Factors Linked to Suicide Attempt After Depression Diagnosis

Soldiers who receive a diagnosis of bipolar disorder or traumatic stress on the same day they receive their first diagnosis of depression are more likely to attempt suicide in the next 30 days, according toa report inBMC Psychiatry. However, soldiers who received a diagnosis of depression and a sleep disorder on the same day are much less likely of an imminent suicide attempt.“Identifying individuals at imminent SA [suicide attempt] risk is a difficult and important clinical task when depression is diagnosed,” wrote Holly Herberman Mash, Ph.D., of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and colleagues. “This is particularly important in the militar y, given that suicide has been increasing, despite efforts to reduce its prevalence.”Mash and colleagues made use of data from theArmy Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS), which maintains medical and administrative records of over 900,000 enlisted soldiers. For this analysis, they tracked the outcomes of 101,046 active-duty enlisted soldiers (78% male) from 2010 to 2016 with no history of suicidal ideation who received their first official diagnosis of major depressive disorder.Of this group, 421 soldiers attempted suicide within 30 days of an diagnosis of depression. The researchers examined a host of sociodemographic, job-related, and psychiatric variables to see which ones influenced this risk. Their final model identified several risk factors, including the following:Having le...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: alcohol use disorder bipolar disorder BMC Psychiatry Combat medic Holly Herberman Mash major depression STARRS suicidal ideation suicide attempt Source Type: research