Burden, belonging, and homelessness: Disclosure and social network differences among LGBTQ youth recruited from a suicide crisis service provider

Among LGBTQ youth, suicidality and homelessness occur at heightened rates. Using the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (ITS), this study seeks to explore the associations of having a parent, family member, friend, or romantic partner in one’s social network and not being “out” to specific network members (lack of disclosure) with ITS constructs (perceived burdensomeness and […]

A content analysis of Reddit users’ perspectives on reasons for not following through with a suicide attempt

Despite a growing understanding of the triggers for suicidal thoughts and behavior, little is known about the mechanisms that prevent people from killing themselves. The goal of the present study was to use publicly available Reddit data to better understand the reasons that people give for not following through with a potentially lethal suicide attempt. […]

Social ties cut both ways: Self-harm and adolescent peer networks

Peers play an important role in adolescence, a time when self-harm arises as a major health risk, but little is known about the social networks of adolescents who cut. Peer network positions can affect mental distress related to cutting or provide direct social motivations for self-harm. This study uses PROSPER survey data from U.S. high […]

Physical, mental, and social wellbeing and their association with death by suicide and self-harm in older adults: A community-based cohort study

Objective To assess associations between physical, mental, and social well‐being and suicide and self‐harm in a community‐based sample of older adults. Methods Using a cohort design, questionnaire data from 102,880 individuals aged 65 years or older living in New South Wales, Australia during 2006–2009 were linked to hospital and cause‐of‐death databases until 2017. Poisson regressions […]

Suicide risk assessment using machine learning and social networks: A scoping review

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) report in 2016, around 800,000 of individuals have committed suicide. Moreover, suicide is the second cause of unnatural death in people between 15 and 29 years. This paper reviews state of the art on the literature concerning the use of machine learning methods for suicide detection on social networks. […]

Compensatory social networking site use, family support, and depression among college freshman: Three-wave panel study

Background: Freshmen were found to use social networking sites (SNS) as a useful medium to effectively adjust to college life, which hints at a tendency to resort to SNS for social compensation. However, the compensatory use of SNS is usually problematic. Objective: This study explores why a subgroup of freshmen developed depressive symptoms while socially […]

Cross-level sociodemographic homogeneity alters individual risk for completed suicide

Among deaths of despair, the individual and community correlates of US suicides have been consistently identified and are well known. However, the suicide rate has been stubbornly unyielding to reduction efforts, promoting calls for novel research directions. Linking levels of influence has been proposed in theory but blocked by data limitations in the United States. […]

Deep neural networks detect suicide risk from textual Facebook posts

Background: Detection of suicide risk is a highly prioritized, yet complicated task. In fact, five decades of suicide research produced predictions that were only marginally better than chance (AUCs = 0.56 – 0.58). Advanced machine learning methods open up new opportunities for progress in mental health research. In the present study, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) […]

Detection of suicidal intent in Spanish language social networks using machine learning

Suicide is a considerable problem in our population, early intervention for its prevention has a very important role, in order to counteract the number of deaths from suicide. Today, just over half of the world’s population uses social networks, where they express ideas, feelings, desires, including suicide intentions. Motivated by these factors, the main objective […]

Adapting digital social prescribing for suicide bereavement support: The findings of a consultation exercise to explore the acceptability of implementing digital social prescribing within an existing postvention service

This paper describes a consultation exercise to explore the acceptability of adapting digital social prescribing (DSP) for suicide bereavement support. Bereavement by suicide increases the risk of suicide and mental health issues. Social prescribing improves connectedness and empowerment and can provide digital outcomes-based reporting to improve the capacity for measuring the effectiveness of interventions. Our […]

Comparing automatically extracted topics from online suicidal ideation and the responses they invoke

Suicide is a national public health concern, claiming over one million lives each year worldwide. The ability to understand, identify, and respond to suicidal behavior remains a key priority in preventing suicide. As online social networks have grown in accessibility and popularity, it is increasingly common for users to both discuss mental health and receive […]

Peer-adult network structure and suicide attempts in 38 high schools: Implications for network-informed suicide prevention

Background Strengthening social integration could prevent suicidal behavior. However, minimal research has examined social integration through relationship network structure. To address this important gap, we tested whether structural characteristics of school networks predict school rates of ideation and attempts. Methods In 38 US high schools, 10,291 students nominated close friends and trusted adults to construct […]

Robust peer-monitoring on graphs with an application to suicide prevention in social net

We consider the problem of selecting a subset of nodes (individuals) in a (social) network that can act as monitors capable of “watching-out” for their neighbors (friends) when the availability or performance of the chosen monitors is uncertain. Such problems arise for example in the context of “Gatekeeper Trainings” for suicide prevention. We formulate this […]

Distress, suicidality, and affective disorders at the time of social networks

We reviewed how scholars recently addressed the complex relationship that binds distress, affective disorders, and suicidal behaviors on the one hand and social networking on the other. We considered the latest machine learning performances in detecting affective-related outcomes from social media data, and reviewed understandings of how, why, and with what consequences distressed individuals use […]

Suicidal disclosures among friends: Using social network data to understand suicide contagion

A robust literature suggests that suicide is socially contagious; however, we know little about how and why suicide spreads. Using network data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we examine the effects of alter’s (1) disclosed and (2) undisclosed suicide attempts, (3) suicide ideation, and (4) emotional distress on ego’s mental […]

Identifying the social demographic correlates of suicide bereavement

We investigated the demographic correlates associated with suicide bereavement among a representative sample of U.S. adults from the 2016 General Social Survey. A secondary aim of this study was to use this representative data platform to cross-check official data findings of U.S. completed suicides. Questions on suicide bereavement were administered to 1,432 GSS 2016 respondents […]

Relationship of social network to protective factors in suicide and alcohol use disorder intervention for rural Yup’ik Alaska Native youth.

Suicide and alcohol use disorders are significant Alaska Native health disparities, yet there is limited understanding of protection and no studies about social network factors in protection in this or other populations. The Qungasvik intervention enhances protective factors from suicide and alcohol use disorders through activities grounded in Yup’ik cultural practices and values. Identification of […]

Assortativity of suicide-related posting on Twitter.

Networks in which similar individuals are more likely to associate with one another than their dissimilar counterparts are called assortative. Such patterns are a hallmark of human social networks, in which numerous phenomena (e.g., mood, weight) cluster among like-type members. The clustering of suicides in time and space implies such fatalities likely also have socially […]

The stigma associated with bereavement by suicide and other sudden deaths: A qualitative interview study.

Quantitative studies have found that suicide bereavement is associated with suicide attempt, and is perceived as the most stigmatising of sudden losses. Their findings also suggest that perceived stigma may explain the excess suicidality. There is a need to understand the nature of this stigma and address suicide risk in this group. We aimed to describe and […]

Effect of provincial spending on social services and health care on health outcomes in Canada: An observational longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: Escalating health care spending is a concern in Western countries, given the lack of evidence of a direct connection between spending and improvements in health. We aimed to determine the association between spending on health care and social programs and health outcomes in Canada. METHODS: We used retrospective data from Canadian provincial expenditure reports, for the […]

An empirical analysis of internet message boards for self-harming behavior.

Much debate surrounds the potential effects of self-harm forum use. Arguments in favor highlight factors such as providing access to a supportive community. However critical voice highlighting potential dangers such as forums serving as a platform to promote self-harm, clearly dominate the debate. Using an online questionnaire, the goal of the current study was to […]

The associations between children’s and adolescents’ suicidal and self-harming behaviors, and related behaviors within their social networks: A systematic review.

Social influences—including the suicidal and self-harming behaviors of others—have been highlighted as a risk factor for suicidal and self-harming behavior in young people, but synthesis of the evidence is lacking. A systematic review of 86 relevant papers was conducted. Considerable published evidence was obtained for positive associations between young people’s suicidal and self-harming behavior and […]

The response in Twitter to an assisted suicide in a television soap opera.

Concern has been expressed about the potentially contagious effect of television soap opera suicides and suicidal language in social media. Aims: Twitter content was analyzed during the week in which a fictional assisted suicide was broadcast on a British television soap opera, “Coronation Street.” Method: Tweets were collected if they contained language indicating possible suicidal […]