Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2015 May 20;10(5):e0126870.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0126870. eCollection 2015.

Alcohol-related risk of suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and completed suicide: a meta-analysis

Nahid Darvishi  1 , Mehran Farhadi  2 , Tahereh Haghtalab  1 , Jalal Poorolajal  3
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Alcohol-related risk of suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and completed suicide: a meta-analysis

Nahid Darvishi et al. PLoS One. .

Erratum in

Expression of concern in

Abstract

Background: Several original studies have investigated the effect of alcohol use disorder (AUD) on suicidal thought and behavior, but there are serious discrepancies across the studies. Thus, a systematic assessment of the association between AUD and suicide is required.

Methods: We searched PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus until February 2015. We also searched the Psycinfo web site and journals and contacted authors. We included observational (cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional) studies addressing the association between AUD and suicide. The exposure of interest was AUD. The primary outcomes were suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and completed suicide. We assessed heterogeneity using Q-test and I2 statistic. We explored publication bias using the Egger's and Begg's tests and funnel plot. We meta-analyzed the data with the random-effects models. For each outcome we calculated the overall odds ratio (OR) or risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Results: We included 31 out of 8548 retrieved studies, with 420,732 participants. There was a significant association between AUD and suicidal ideation (OR=1.86; 95% CI: 1.38, 2.35), suicide attempt (OR=3.13; 95% CI: 2.45, 3.81); and completed suicide (OR=2.59; 95% CI: 1.95, 3.23 and RR=1.74; 95% CI: 1.26, 2.21). There was a significant heterogeneity among the studies, but little concern to the presence of publication bias.

Conclusions: There is sufficient evidence that AUD significantly increases the risk of suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and completed suicide. Therefore, AUD can be considered an important predictor of suicide and a great source of premature death.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Flow of information through the different phases of the systematic review.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Forest plot of the association between alcohol use disorder and suicide ideation.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Forest plot of the association between alcohol use disorder and suicide attempt.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Forest plot of the association between alcohol use disorder and completed suicide.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Funnel plot of included studies assessing the publication bias in studies addressing the association between alcohol use disorder and suicide ideation.
Fig 6
Fig 6. Funnel plot of included studies assessing the publication bias in studies addressing the association between alcohol use disorder and suicide attempt.
Fig 7
Fig 7. Funnel plot of included studies assessing the publication bias in studies addressing the association between alcohol use disorder and completed suicide.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. World Health Organization. Suicide prevention. Geneva: WHO; 2013.
    1. World Health Organization; Suicide prevention (SUPRE). Geneva: WHO; 2013.
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Understanding suicide: fact sheet. Atlanta: CDC; 2013.
    1. Poorolajal J, Esmailnasab N, Ahmadzadeh J, Azizi Motlagh T. The burden of premature mortality in Hamadan Province in 2006 and 2010 using standard expected years of potential life lost: a population-based study. Epidemiol Health. 2012;34: e2012005 10.4178/epih/e2012005 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization. 10 facts on injuries and violence Beginning. Geneva: WHO; 2013.

Publication types