Gender Differences in Predictors of Suicidality Among United States Veterans

Background and Purpose:

An unfortunate collateral effect of the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is the ongoing impact on the mental health of military members.  Suicide within the US military has been on the rise since 2004 and peaked in 2012, when it became the leading cause of death among active duty military personnel, yet research is scarce in the area of suicidality in female veterans.  As  women continue to serve in increasingly dangerous and stressful combat roles, and it is essential to know what factors influence suicidality and how gender differences impact suicide among military members.    To address this need, this study focuses specifically on the military population within a large nationwide sample and how suicidality varies between males and females and between veterans and non-veterans.  

Methods: 

This study utilizes secondary data from the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual survey conducted by SAMHSA and The Department of Health and Human Services.  For this current inquiry, only adult respondents are included in the analyses (N=41,671).

The dependent variables of interest are reported suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. The independent variables of interest are demographic measures as well as alcohol abuse and major depression. 

Binary logistic regression was utilized to ascertain the effects of age, gender, marital status, race/ethnicity, education level, veteran status, alcohol abuse, and major depression on the likelihood that respondents report having suicidal ideation in the past year. 

Results:

The logistic regression model was significant and found that non-veterans were 24% more likely to report having suicidal thoughts than veterans.  Divorced individuals were 81% more likely and individuals who have never been married were 73% more likely to report suicidal thoughts than married individuals.  Individuals who reported alcohol abuse in the past year were 55% more likely to report suicidal thoughts than those who did not report alcohol abuse.  Those who reported a lifetime history of major depression were 11 times more likely to report suicidal thoughts than those with no reported history of major depression.  

Within the veteran population, there were surprising findings that contradicted what would be expected based on the literature.  There were no statistically significant differences in the reporting of suicidal thoughts based on gender, race, marital status, or alcohol abuse.  There were statistically significant differences in suicidal thoughts based on age, education level, and major depression.  Those veterans who had major depression in the past year were 12 times more likely to report suicidal thoughts than those veterans with no major depression.  Although this finding is significant, it is not dissimilar from what is found in the non-veteran sample. 

Conclusions:

The findings suggest that depression and substance abuse are more significant factors in predicting suicide than are gender or veteran status.  Future studies could examine possible differences in suicidality between active duty and veteran populations, between males and females in a different sample, and could also examine other complex variables such as military sexual trauma, combat trauma, and pre-military trauma.