Citation

Stack S, Lester D. Crisis 2007; 28(1): 46-47.

Affiliation

Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, International Association for Suicide Prevention, Publisher Hogrefe Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

17555033

Abstract

Body mass has been neglected as a possible predictor of suicidal behavior. The present investigation explores the association between body mass index and completed suicide. Data are from the National Mortality Followback Survey and refer to 373 suicides, and 518 deaths from motor vehicle accidents as controls. The results of a logistic regression analysis indicated that, for females, the greater the BMI the greater the suicide risk. However, this relationship did not hold up under controls for race and other covariates of BMI. For males, the BMI was not significantly related to suicide risk either at the bivariate or multivariate levels of analysis. The best predictors of suicide were living alone for females, and alcohol abuse for males.

Language: en