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Predicting Suicide Attempts among Treatment‐Seeking Male Alcoholics: An Exploratory Study
Author(s) -
Hung Galen ChinLun,
Caine Eric D.,
Fan HsiangFang,
Huang MingChyi,
Chen YingYeh
Publication year - 2013
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/sltb.12028
Subject(s) - suicide attempt , family history , suicide prevention , psychiatry , alcohol use disorder , receiver operating characteristic , psychology , clinical psychology , injury prevention , poison control , medicine , cutoff , medical history , occupational safety and health , medical emergency , alcohol , pathology , physics , quantum mechanics , biochemistry , chemistry
Documented risk factors for suicide among alcohol‐dependent patients are sensitive but insufficiently specific to effectively identify individuals who are prone to future suicide attempt. As a first step to assess factors not previously considered, this pilot study involved a group of male alcohol‐dependent patients ( N = 175) coming to detoxification to examine the potential utility of adverse childhood experiences ( ACE ) along with other documented events to discriminate individuals with a history of attempted suicide from their detoxifying peers. Family health history questionnaires were used to evaluate their ACE s. Receiver operating characteristic ( ROC ) analysis was applied to examine the predictive power of ACE s, alone or in combination with documented risk factors, to lifetime history of attempted suicide. Among our participants, 48 (27.4%) had a history of a suicide attempt and 156 (89.1%) reported at least one out of the nine categories of ACE s. Modeling by ROC analysis, we found that a cutoff of four or more ACE s plus a history of personal violence achieved the best predictive power to a history of any suicide attempt, producing a sensitivity of 0.7, specificity of 0.81, and area under curve of 0.75. A prospective study to replicate and extend our findings is necessary.