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Meta-Analysis
. 2018 Jan;35(1):65-88.
doi: 10.1002/da.22686. Epub 2017 Oct 24.

Understanding suicide risk within the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework: A meta-analytic review

Catherine R Glenn  1 , Evan M Kleiman  2 , Christine B Cha  3 , Charlene A Deming  2 , Joseph C Franklin  4 , Matthew K Nock  2
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Understanding suicide risk within the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework: A meta-analytic review

Catherine R Glenn et al. Depress Anxiety. 2018 Jan.

Abstract

Background: The field is in need of novel and transdiagnostic risk factors for suicide. The National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) provides a framework that may help advance research on suicidal behavior.

Method: We conducted a meta-analytic review of existing prospective risk and protective factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (ideation, attempts, and deaths) that fall within one of the five RDoC domains or relate to a prominent suicide theory. Predictors were selected from a database of 4,082 prospective risk and protective factors for suicide outcomes.

Results: A total of 460 predictors met inclusion criteria for this meta-analytic review and most examined risk (vs. protective) factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The overall effect of risk factors was statistically significant, but relatively small, in predicting suicide ideation (weighted mean odds ratio: wOR = 1.72; 95% CI: 1.59-1.87), suicide attempt (wOR = 1.66 [1.57-1.76), and suicide death (wOR = 1.41 [1.24-1.60]). Across all suicide outcomes, most risk factors related to the Negative Valence Systems domain, although effect sizes were of similar magnitude across RDoC domains.

Conclusions: This study demonstrated that the RDoC framework provides a novel and promising approach to suicide research; however, relatively few studies of suicidal behavior fit within this framework. Future studies must go beyond the "usual suspects" of suicide risk factors (e.g., mental disorders, sociodemographics) to understand the processes that combine to lead to this deadly outcome.

Keywords: Research Domain Criteria; meta-analysis; risk factor; suicide; suicide attempts.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA diagram for present meta-analysis. RDoC=Research Domain Criteria.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Figures 2a–c. Funnel plots of standard error by log odds ratio.(Note. Funnel plots from each RDoC domain are overlaid here and thus funnel plot boundaries are overall lines of best fit for all points.).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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