Careless and inconsistent reporting inflates suicidality prevalence and biases sex differences

Area of Science:

• Epidemiology
• Adolescent Health
• Mental Health Research

Background:

• Self-report surveys are common in adolescent suicidality research.
• Methodological issues like careless or inconsistent reporting are often overlooked.
• These issues can impact the accuracy of prevalence estimates and sex differences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of careless and inconsistent reporting on adolescent suicidality prevalence.
• To examine how misreporting affects estimates of sex differences in suicidality.
• To highlight the importance of data validity in epidemiological studies.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of two national surveys of secondary-school students (2010 and 2014).
• Assessment of depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, plans, attempts, recognition, and disclosure.
• Comparison of prevalence estimates using three methods: unadjusted (M1), excluding fictitious endorsers (M2), and excluding all careless reporters (M3).

Main Results:

• Approximately 19% of respondents were identified as careless or inconsistent.
• Methods M2 and M3 produced lower prevalence estimates than M1 for most indicators.
• Significant reductions were observed in reports of unnoticed suicide attempts (-73.8%) and multiple attempts (-35.9%).

Conclusions:

• Overlooking misreporting can lead to inflated adolescent suicidality prevalence and distorted sex-difference estimates.
• Data-cleaning procedures and validity checks are essential for accurate epidemiological findings.
• Improved data accuracy can enhance the effectiveness of adolescent suicide prevention programs.