An interactive model of anxiety sensitivity relevant to suicide attempt history and future suicidal ideation
Section snippets
Sample and setting
The sample in this study consisted of 128 adult outpatients receiving psychological services at a university clinic who screened positive for PTSD during an initial screening interview. This positive screen for PTSD indicated that the patient endorsed the following 3 questions: 1) Did something terrible ever happen to you that kept coming back to you in some way like nightmares or flashbacks? 2) Do you try to avoid thinking about it? 3) Do you experience physical and anxiety symptoms, such as
Study 1 – results
History of a suicide attempt was found in 36.7% of the sample. In terms of diagnostic co-occurrence, 31.9% of previous attempters received a Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) diagnosis compared with 40.7% of non-attempters (χ2 (1, n = 128) = .65, p = .421). A significantly higher percentage of past attempters received a personality disorder diagnosis (42.6%) than did non-attempters (12.3%; χ2 (1, n = 128) = 13.49, p < .001).
Bivariate correlations between the measures are shown in Table 1. As
Study 2
One limitation of the findings from Study 1 is that the data are cross-sectional, so no inferences can be made about causality. As a more stringent test of the AS-suicidality association, we prospectively evaluated whether baseline levels of the AS subscales interacted to predict changes in suicidal ideation in a military sample undergoing a stressful life event.
Participants and procedure
Participants included 1081 first year cadets from the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA; see Schmidt et al. (1997) for more details on admission criteria of the USAFA). The cadets begin military training upon arrival with basic cadet training (BCT). BCT consists of five weeks of training, designed to continuously expose cadets to a variety of unpredictable and uncontrollable physical and mental stressors. Cadets are not given schedules and have no access to clocks or watches. New stressors
Study 2 – results
Time 2 suicidal ideation was found in 7.3% of the sample. T2 suicidal ideators were significantly higher on baseline depressive symptoms (t (86.63) = −6.49, p < .001), anxiety (t (94.75) = −5.08, p = < .001) and T1 suicidal ideation (t (84.70) = −9.56, p < .001). Bivariate correlations between the measures are shown in Table 4. As expected due to the similarity of the constructs, all measures were significantly correlated.
Direct logistic regression was performed to assess the impact of a number
Discussion
The findings of this study suggest that a combination of low physical AS concerns and high cognitive AS concerns are associated with increased rates of suicide attempt among those with significant PTSD symptoms and are a risk factor for suicidal ideation among individuals undergoing a stressful life event. Our results from Study 2 are consistent with those from Schmidt et al. (2001), who found that AS-cognitive was highly predictive of suicidal ideation in a sample of patients with panic
Role of funding source
Study 2 was supported by Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Grant RO72CF. The uniformed services university of the health sciences had no further role in study design, analysis and interpretation of the data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. The opinions or assertions construed herein are the private ones of the authors and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Department of Defense, the United
Contributors
Daniel Capron designed the idea for the manuscript, wrote the majority of the introduction, results and conclusion for study 1 and study 2 and coordinated the co-authors contributions.
Jesse Cougle helped write the introduction and discussion sections for both studies.
Jessica Ribeiro wrote the methods section for study 1 and provided feedback on the drafts.
Thomas Joiner provided feedback on all sections of the manuscript.
Brad Schmidt collected the data for study 2 and provided feedback on all
Conflict of interest
All authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgment
We have no acknowledgments for the current manuscript.
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