Suicidal ideation in a random community sample: attributable risk due to depression and psychosocial and traumatic events

Objective: To determine the attributable risk for suicidal ideation of depr ession and psychosocial and traumatic events in a random and representative population. Method: Data were gathered from a random and representative sample of 2501 South Australians. Suicidal ideation and clinical depression were determine d by the general health questionnaire (GHQ-28) and the short-form health su rvey (SF-12) respectively, and information regarding psychosocial stressors and traumatic events was collated. These data were subjected to univariate and multivariate analyses to determine the population-attributable risks f or suicidal ideation. Results: Overall, 5.6% of men and 5.3% of women had suicidal ideation, Univ ariate analyses demonstrated a significant attributable risk for suicidal i deation for depression and the majority of the psychosocial and traumatic e vents. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that clinical depression remained significantly associated with suicidal ideation, with a population-attribu table risk of 46.9%, Because of the small number of people in the populatio n who experience both suicidal ideation and specific events, multivariate a nalysis could not be applied to individual events. However, even when the p sychosocial events were summed, they no longer remained significantly assoc iated with suicidal ideation, whereas the summation of traumatic events rem ained significant, with a population-attributable risk of 38.0%, Conclusions: These results confirm the importance of traumatic events as si gnificant factors in contributing to suicidal ideation, However, of even gr eater importance is that they indicate, unequivocally, the magnitude of the contribution of clinical depression to suicidal ideation, with the populat ion-attributable risk of depression indicating that elimination of mood dis orders would reduce suicidal ideation by up to 46.9%.