Second, we identified risk factors for 12-month suicidal behaviors across both developed and developing countries. Replicating the results of prior studies, female sex, younger age, lower education and income, unmarried status, unemployment, parent psychopathology, childhood adversities, the presence of every mental disorder assessed, and psychiatric comorbidity all emerged as significant risk factors for suicidal behaviors in this study.7, 56–58 Interestingly, analyses revealed that most of these factors are associated with suicide attempts because they are predictive of suicide ideation even though they do not significantly predict the occurrence of suicide attempts among those with suicide ideation. For instance, although the presence of a DSM-IV mental disorder was associated with significantly higher odds of experiencing suicide ideation in virtually every instance, few mental disorders predicted suicide attempts among those with ideation. Among those few disorders, conduct disorder emerged as the strongest and most consistent predictor of suicide attempts, with anxiety and substance use disorders also showing significant results in several instances. These findings are consistent with those from a recent study of the prediction of lifetime suicide attempts1 and suggest that disorders characterized by impulse-control and anxiety may be most important in predicting the transition from suicidal thoughts to suicide attempts.
