Differentiating African American Adolescent Suicide Attempters from Ideators

PRESENTATION TYPE: Individual Poster

CATEGORY/THEME: Epidemiology Etiology

TITLE: Differentiating African American adolescent suicide attempters from ideators

ABSTRACT BODY:

Introduction: Recent reports indicate rates of death by suicide among ethnic minorities are rising. Past research indicates that depressed mood increases the risk of suicide ideation and that substance use also increases the risk for both suicide ideation as well suicide attempts. However, it is not clear as to what escalates suicidal ideation to suicide attempts. The purpose of this project is to differentiate African American (AA) adolescent suicide attempters from suicide ideators by examining racial discrimination and alcohol use as potential moderators of links between depression and suicidality (including both suicide ideation and attempts).

Methods. Using the data from the Family and Community Health Study, a 16-year longitudinal project, suicidal behavior in a large community sample of AA youth (N= 889) will be examined. This study will focus on the third wave of the FACHS study, when the youth were, on average, 15.5 years old. Analyses will compare the effects of alcohol use and racial discrimination as predictors of suicidal ideation, as well as compare the effects of alcohol use and racial discrimination as predictors of suicide attempts.

Results: Statistical analyses are ongoing. The main analyses use multinomial regression with main effects of alcohol use and racial discrimination as predictors of suicide ideation and suicide attempts. Next, models will examine the effects when controlling for depressive symptomology, age, and gender. Final models will examine all 2-way and 3-way interactions (e.g., racial discrimination X age X gender). The first set of models will specify the outcome using four categories (e.g., no suicidal ideation, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, no attempts) created by combining the suicide ideation and suicide attempts items. Additional models will explore each variable (suicide ideation, suicide attempts) as separate outcomes.

Conclusion: Most of the suicide prevention research has been conducted among small clinical samples that lack ethnic diversity. In contrast, the FACHS data provides a unique opportunity to analyze suicidal behavior in a large, community sample of AA youth. Our hope is that these findings bring clarity to the association of alcohol use and racial discrimination in respect to suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in AA adolescents. Such understanding may help efforts to develop effective prevention and intervention strategies to address suicide behavior among this underrepresented group.