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Dimensionality of thoughts of death and suicide: evidence from a study of homeless adolescents

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Abstract

This study used data from a sample of 444 homeless adolescents to determine whether thoughts of death and suicide form one construct (unidimensionality) or two distinct but correlated constructs (multi-dimensionality). Thoughts of death and suicide were common in the sample; over two-thirds of the adolescents positively endorsed at least one of the eight death- or suicide-related items. Evidence regarding dimensionality was mixed. Exploratory factor analysis results and similarity coefficients supported one construct; confirmatory factor analysis and external consistency results provided evidence for two constructs. The results were reconciled by considering suicidality as a continuum from thoughts of death to suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and completed suicide.

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Notes

  1. Due to concerns about participant fatigue and time constraints, the number of psychiatric diagnoses was limited to those that were expected, based on previous research, to be most prevalent (Whitbeck, Johnson, Hoyt, & Cauce, 2004).

  2. The death- and suicide-related criteria for MDE were excluded in order to avoid artificially inflating the relationship of MDE with thoughts of death and thoughts of suicide. However, this did not affect the prevalence of MDE.

  3. Principal axis factoring is typically used to find latent variables that account for relationships among variables, and principal components analysis (PCA) is usually used for data reduction (Floyd & Widaman, 1995). Given the goals of this study, PAF was selected over PCA.

  4. The commonly used eigenvalue ≥ 1 rule is not appropriate when using principal axis factoring (Russell, 2002).

  5. Unidimensionality could also be assessed using a second-order CFA model (Rubio, Berg-Weger, & Tebb, 2001), but this model is not identified with only two first-order latent constructs (Rindskopf & Rose, 1988).

  6. Strauss (2006) recommends reporting both Cronbach’s α and the average inter-item correlation for assessing internal consistency reliability.

  7. All of the analyses were repeated using Pearson correlations, and the SCs and the factor loadings in all of the exploratory and CFA models were lower. Nonetheless, the substantive conclusions based on the Pearson correlations were the same as they were for the polychoric correlations.

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Acknowledgments

The Mid-west Longitudinal Study of Homeless Adolescents was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (MH57110), Les B. Whitbeck, Principal Investigator. Thank you to Kurt Johnson and Elizabeth Fisher for comments and help on earlier drafts of this paper.

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of North Texas, P.O. Box 311157, Denton, TX, 76203-1157, USA

    Kevin A. Yoder

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588, USA

    Les B. Whitbeck & Dan R. Hoyt

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  1. Kevin A. Yoder
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Yoder, K.A., Whitbeck, L.B. & Hoyt, D.R. Dimensionality of thoughts of death and suicide: evidence from a study of homeless adolescents. Soc Indic Res 86, 83–100 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-007-9095-5

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