We also found that risk of the transition from suicidal thoughts to attempts was significantly lower among those who had thought of suicide in the past but never made an attempt than even among those who had never had suicidal thoughts before the past 12 months. This intriguing result, coupled with the earlier finding that more than 60% of the transitions from suicide ideation to attempt occur in the first year after onset of ideation,1 suggests that resisting the urge to make a suicide attempt when suicidal thoughts first occur is associated with decreased risk of acting on these thoughts when they return. An important next step is to study people with a history of ideation who never made a suicide attempt in greater detail in an effort to understand what characterizes such people (e.g., good impulse control, low severity of suicide ideation) and what strategies they use to resist the urge to make a suicide attempt. Importantly, these findings should not be interpreted to mean that those who have thought about suicide in the past but not made an
