Reasons for suicide attempts in a clinical sample of active duty soldiers

Self-reported reasons for suicide attempts were examined in a sample of active duty soldiers who had attempted suicide using a functional approach that classifies suicidal behaviors into four primary functions of reinforcement: automatic negative (AN-R; to reduce aversive internal experiences), automatic positive (AP-R; to generate desired internal experiences), social negative (SN-R; to avoid aversive contextual demands), and social positive (SP-R; to generate desired environmental contexts). Based on previous theory and research, the authors hypothesized that soldiers would attempt suicide primarily to reduce aversive internal experiences (i.e., AN-R).

72 soldiers (66 male, 6 female; 65.3% Caucasian, 9.7% African-American, 2.8% Asian, 2.8% Pacific Islander, 4.2% Native American, and 9.7% "other"; age M=27.34, SD=6.50) were interviewed using the Suicide Attempt Self Injury Interview to assess suicidal intent, method, lethality, and reasons for attempting suicide.

Soldiers endorsed attempting suicide for both automatic and social reasons, with multiple functions being endorsed in 95% of attempts. AN-R was endorsed in 100% of suicide attempts, and was primary to other functions. Suicidal intent was weakly correlated with AN-R, AP-R, and SN-R functions (rs<.22), and medical lethality was very weakly correlated with only the SP-R function (r=.18).

Small sample size and retrospective self-report methodology.

Soldiers attempt suicide primarily to alleviate emotional distress. Reasons for attempting suicide do not correlate strongly with suicidal intent or medical lethality.