Citation

McCool MW, Schwebel FJ, Pearson MR, Wong MM. J. Am. Coll. Health 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/07448481.2024.2351419

PMID

38728739

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Predicting the presence and severity of suicidal ideation in college students is important, as deaths by suicide amongst young adults have increased in the past 20 years. PARTICIPANTS: We recruited college students (N = 5494) from ten universities across eight states.

METHOD: Participants answered three questionnaires related to lifetime and past month suicidal ideation, and an indicator of suicidal ideation in a DSM-5 symptom measure. We used recursive partitioning to predict the presence, absence, and severity, of suicidal ideation.

RESULTS: Recursive partitioning models varied in their accuracy and performance. The best-performing model consisted of predictors and outcomes measured by the DSM-5 Level 1 Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure. Sexual orientation was also an important predictor in most models.

CONCLUSIONS: A single measure of DSM-5 symptom severity may help universities understand suicide severity to promote targeted interventions. Though further work is needed, as similar scaling amongst predictors could have influenced the model.

Language: en

Keywords

College students; recursive partitioning; suicide