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Suicide Ideation: Its Relation to Depression, Suicide and Suicide Attempt
Author(s) -
Vandivort Daniel S.,
Locke Ben Z.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
suicide and life‐threatening behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.544
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1943-278X
pISSN - 0363-0234
DOI - 10.1111/j.1943-278x.1979.tb00439.x
Subject(s) - respondent , suicide ideation , suicide attempt , suicidal ideation , suicide prevention , depression (economics) , psychology , psychiatry , clinical psychology , population , poison control , medicine , medical emergency , environmental health , political science , law , economics , macroeconomics
A random sample of 3,935 adults from a general population were interviewed and asked to report how often they had thoughts of suicide as well as their opinion on the frequency of suicide ideation in others. Depression was found to be related to the respondent's reports of his/her own suicidal thoughts and to reports of frequent suicide ideation in others. A total of 5.4 percent of the respondents reported some degree of suicide ideation in the previous month and 9.1 percent reported that others think about suicide once a month or more. When the demographic characteristics of those who report suicide ideation in themselves or others were compared to those of suicide attempters and committers, some consistencies were found, suggesting that such questions may be useful in identifying those “at risk.” Nevertheless, sufficient discrepancies were found which suggest that there may be a number of factors which increase or decrease the likelihood that someone with thoughts of suicide will attempt or commit suicide. Follow‐up studies are necessary to uncover such factors and the degrees to which they influence the occurrence of suicide.