Abstract
Background: Traumatic life events have been associated with increased risk of various psychiatric disorders, even suicidality. Our aim was to investigate the association between different traumatic life events and suicidality, by type of event and gender. Methods: Women attending a cancer screening programme in Iceland (n = 689) and a random sample of men from the general population (n = 709) were invited to participate. In a web-based questionnaire, life events were assessed with the Life Stressor Checklist–Revised, and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) criterion was used to identify traumatic life events. Reports of lifetime suicidal thoughts, self-harm with suicidal intent and suicide attempt were considered as lifetime suicidality. We used Poisson regression, adjusted for demographic factors, to express relative risks (RRs) as a measure of the associations between traumatic events and suicidality. Results: Response rate was 66% (922/1398). The prevalence of lifetime traumatic events was 76% among women and 77% among men. Lifetime suicidality was 11% among women and 16% among men. An overall association of having experienced traumatic life events with suicidality was observed [RR 2.05, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.21–3.75], with a stronger association for men (RR 3.14, 95% CI 1.25–7.89) than for women (RR 1.45, 95% CI 0.70–2.99). Increased likelihood for suicidality was observed among those who had experienced interpersonal trauma (RR 2.97, 95% CI 1.67–5.67), childhood trauma (RR 4.09, 95% CI 2.27–7.36) and sexual trauma (RR 3.44, 95% CI 1.85–6.37), with a higher likelihood for men. In addition, an association between non-interpersonal trauma and suicidality was noted among men (RR 3.27, 95% CI 1.30–8.25) but not women (RR 1.27, 95% CI 0.59–2.70). Conclusion: Findings indicate that traumatic life events are associated with suicidality, especially among men, with the strongest association for interpersonal trauma.
| Translated title of the contribution | The association between different traumatic life events and suicidality |
|---|---|
| Original language | French |
| Article number | 1510279 |
| Journal | European Journal of Psychotraumatology |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information: This work was supported by the Rannis Research Fund (grant number 130611-051), and the University of Iceland Research Fund and Assistantship Fund. Data collection was funded by the collaborative institutions of the SAGA cohort, corporate sponsors and research grants from the organizing investigators. Publisher Copyright: © 2018, © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.Other keywords
- Psychological Trauma
- Sjálfsvíg
- Suicidal Ideation
- Sálræn áföll
- Trauma
- gender
- life events
- suicidal thoughts and behaviour
- • Traumatic life events were associated with suicidality.• Non-interpersonal trauma was associated with suicidality among men, but not women.• Interpersonal trauma was associated with suicidality for both genders, with a higher likelihood among men.
