Religiousness as a Predictor of Suicide: An Analysis of 162 European Regions

Research on religion as a protective factor has been marked by four recurrent limitations: (1) an overemphasis on the United States, a nation where religiosity is relatively high; (2) a neglect of highly secularized zones of the world, where religiousness may be too weak to affect suicide; (3) restriction of religiousness to religious affiliation, a construct which may miss capturing other dimensions of religiousness such as the importance of religion in one's life; and (4) an overwhelming use of the nation as a unit of analysis, which masks variation in religiousness within nations. The present article addresses these limitations by performing a cross‐national test of the following hypothesis: The greater the strength of subjective religiousness, the lower the suicide rate, using small units of analysis for a secularized area of the world. All data refer to 162 regions within 22 European nations. Data were extracted from two large databases, EUROSTAT and the European Social Surveys (ESS Round 4), and merged using NUTS‐2 (Nomenclature of Statistical Territorial Units) regions as the unit of analysis. Controls are incorporated for level of economic development, education, and measures of economic strain. The results of a multiple regression analysis demonstrated that controlling for the other constructs in the model, religiousness is associated with lower suicide rates, confirming the hypothesis. Even in secularized European nations, where there is a relatively weak moral community to reinforce religion, religiousness acts as a protective factor against suicide. Future work is needed to explore the relationship in other culture zones of the world.     

Citation Classics in Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior: A Research Note

The number of citations a scholarly work receives is a common measure of its impact on the scientific literature; “citation classics” are the most highly cited works. The content of Suicide and Life‐Threatening Behavior (SLTB) citation classics is described here. The impact of SLTB citation classics is compared to their counterparts in journals having published the most suicide papers. All data are from the ISI electronic venue on the Web of Science and refer to the number of citations the top 1% of works received in each of ten journals from 1975 through August 10, 2011. Among all ten journals, SLTB ranked first in the number of works on suicide. The principle theme of half of SLTB suicide classics was literature review. The median number of citations for SLTB citation classics (top 1%) was 121.5, with a range between 96 and 279 citations, but classics from generalized psychiatric journals received more citations as anticipated. Journal impact factors explained 73% of the variance in classic’s citation counts across journals. On average, suicide classics received 30% more citations than all classics. Among a second group of five specialized suicide journals, however, SLTB ranked first in average 5‐year impact. Although SLTB produced the highest number of suicide articles of any journal, SLTB’s citation classics received fewer citations than suicide classics in high‐impact/prestige, general journals. Future work is needed to assess what predicts which SLTB articles ultimately become citation classics.     

Suicide in Detroit 1975: Changes and Continuities

ABSTRACT: Data on 193 cases of suicide in Detroit are analyzed to assess changes and continuities in the etiology of suicide. A significant change in the correlates of suicide is a shift in the group with the highest rate of suicide from the elderly to the relatively young age cohorts. A tentative explanation for this new pattern is suggested in terms of youth culture and underemployment. Continuities in the traditional etiology of suicide included the findings that males, persons in manual occupations, whites, and immigrants had relatively high rates of suicide.     

Differentiating Suicide Ideators from Attempters: Violence—A Research Note

Which factors distinguish suicide attempters from suicide ideators is a relatively neglected question in suicidology. Data from the 2001 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, encompassing 1,439 youth suicide ideators and 1,097 attempters, was used to explore which factors best differentiate suicide attempters from ideators, with a focus on violence involvement. Measures of violence include the contexts of fights, dating, and weapons carrying. Controls were incorporated for psychiatric disorders, risky sexual behavior, school integration, and demographics. Controlling for the other variables, violence differentiated attempts from ideation: fighting (OR = 2.18) and weapon carrying (OR = 1.13). Psychiatric factors that predicted attempts over ideation included major depression (OR = 1.86), use of cocaine (OR = 2.34), and having a suicide plan (OR = 2.69), while demographic factors included gender, age, residence in the Midwest, and Hispanic, African American, or Asian ethnicity. A supplementary analysis (N = 11,546) determined that violence also helped to differentiate suicide ideators from nonsuicidal youth. Four factors (including violence involvement, eating disorders, and gender consistently) differentiated both between suicide attempts and ideation, and also between suicide ideators and nonsuicidal youth. The link between violence involvement and suicidality is interpreted in terms of the capability for suicide from the interpersonal theory of suicide.     

Predictors of Article Impact in Suicidology: The Bereavement Literature,A Research Note

Citation analysis has been neglected in suicidology. The present note applies a mixed‐methods approach to both test and suggest hypotheses for the variation in article impact in the bereavement literature. One hundred three articles from three core suicidology journals met the criteria for inclusion in the investigation. Citations to the articles were obtained from the Web of Science. Predictor variables included structural characteristics of the author (e.g., gender) and the article itself (e.g., years since publication). A multivariate regression analysis determined that, controlling for the other variables, the most important predictor of citations was the review article (β = .461), followed by year of publication (β = ?.414), the multiauthored article (β = .302), publication in Suicide and Life‐Threatening Behavior (SLTB) (β = .161), and male gender (β = .156). The 12 most cited articles were published between 1979 and 2004 in SLTB. The majority of these papers was written by males, were U.S. authors, and had more than one author. Four of the most cited articles were reviews. The study concludes that structural characteristics of articles and authors explained 41% of the variance in citations. The qualitative analysis determined that review papers, and papers on characteristics of suicide bereavement and psychological autopsies have been most frequently cited. Replication studies are needed for other subfields of suicidology.