Differentiating adolescent suicide attempters from ideators: examining the interaction between depression severity and alcohol use

Abstract

Depressed mood, frequency of alcohol use, and their combination were examined to see if they differentiated nonsuicidal adolescents from those with suicidal ideation and adolescents with suicidal ideation from those who have made a suicide attempt. Hierarchical logistic regressions indicated that frequency of alcohol use did not differentiate nonsuicidal adolescents from those with current suicidal ideation, but severity of depressed mood did so. In contrast, alcohol use was a significant differentiating factor between adolescents who had attempted suicide compared to those with suicidal ideation only, with severity of depressed mood not being significant. However, there was also a significant interaction effect such that for adolescents with suicidal ideation and low levels of depression, increased frequency of alcohol use was associated with increased odds of a suicide attempt. These findings suggest that alcohol use may hasten the transition from suicidal ideation to suicide attempt in adolescents with low levels of depressed mood.

Figure 1

Interactive Effect of Depression Severity and Alcohol Frequency on Probability of a Suicide Attempt among Current Ideators (n = 73). Note: Alcohol frequency was scored on a 6-point scale ranging from “0 = never used” to “5 = used 10+ of the past 30 days.” Depression severity was scored using the Children’s Depression Inventory. High depression severity = 1 SD above the mean, low depression severity = score 1 SD below the mean.