Suicide risk and sexual orientation: A critical review

Archives of Sexual Behavior

Volumn 42, Issue 5, 2013, Pages 715-727

  Plöderl, Martin ^a,b   Wagenmakers, Eric Jan ^c   Tremblay, Pierre ^d   Ramsay, Richard ^d   Kralovec, Karl ^a,b   Fartacek, Clemens ^a,b   Fartacek, Reinhold ^a,b  

^a PARACELSUS MEDICAL UNIVERSITY   (Austria)

^b Christian Doppler Klinik   (Austria)

^c UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

^d UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY   (Canada)

Author keywords

Bayesian statistics; Homosexuality; Sexual minority; Sexual orientation; Suicide

Indexed keywords

BAYES THEOREM; FEMALE; HUMAN; MALE; PSYCHOLOGY; RISK; RISK FACTOR; SEXUALITY; STATISTICS AND NUMERICAL DATA; SUICIDE; SUICIDE ATTEMPT; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; REVIEW; STATISTICS;

BAYES THEOREM; FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; RISK; RISK FACTORS; SEXUALITY; SUICIDE; SUICIDE, ATTEMPTED;

EID: 84881664675     PISSN: 00040002     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10508-012-0056-y     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (101)

1. Alaska Injury Prevention Center. (2007). Alaska suicide follow-back study. Final report study period September 1, 2003 to August 31, 2006. Retrieved from http://www.hss.state.ak.us/suicideprevention/pdfs-sspc/sspcfollowback2-07. pdf.
2. Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. (2008). Research and evidence in suicide prevention. Retrieved from http://www. livingisforeveryone.com.au/uploads/docs/LIFE-research-web.pdf.
3. Bagley, C., & Tremblay, P. (1997). Suicidal behaviors in homosexual and bisexual males. Crisis, 18, 24-34.
4. Bagley, C., & Tremblay, P. (2000). Elevated rates of suicidal behavior in gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth. Crisis, 21, 111-117.
5. Balkin, R. S., & Sheperis, C. J. (2011). Evaluating and reporting statistical power in counseling research. Journal of Counseling & Development, 9, 268-272.
6. Beskow, J. (1979). Suicide in mental disorder in Swedish men. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 277(Suppl.), 1-138.
7. Bolton, S. L., & Sareen, J. (2011). Sexual orientation and its relation to mental disorders and suicide attempts: Findings from a nationally representative sample. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 56, 35-43.
8. Bortz, J. (1993). Statistik für Sozialwissenschafter. Berlin: Springer.
9. Brennan, D. J., Ross, L. E., Dobinson, C., Veldhuizen, S., & Steele, L. S. (2010). Men's sexual orientation and health in Canada. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 101, 255-258.
10. British Columbia Child Death Review Unit & BC Coroner Service. (2008). A five-year retrospective review of child and youth suicide in B.C. Retrieved from http://www.pssg.gov.bc.ca/coroners/child-death-review/docs/cdru- suicidereportfull.pdf.
11. Cass, V. C. (1979). Homosexual identity formation: A theoretical model. Journal of Homosexuality, 4, 219-235.
12. Catalan, J., Harding, R., Sibley, E., Clucas, C., Croome, N., & Sherr, L. (2011). HIV infection and mental health: Suicidal behavior - Systematic review. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 16, 588-611.
13. Centers of Disease Control (CDC). (1991). Pilot study of a household survey to determine HIV seroprevalence. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 40, 1-5.
14. Chan, A. W., & Altman, D. G. (2005). Epidemiology and reporting of randomised trials published in PubMed journals. Lancet, 365, 1159-1162.
15. Chandra, A., Mosher, W. D., Copen, C., & Sionean, C. (2011, June 10). Sexual behavior, sexual attraction, and sexual identity in the United States: Data from the 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth. National health statistics reports; no 36. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. Retrieved from www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr036.pdf.
16. Cochran, S. D., & Mays, V. M. (2011). Sexual orientation and mortality among US men aged 17 to 59 years: Results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III. American Journal of Public Health, 101, 1133-1138.
17. D'Augelli, A. R., Grossman, A. H., Salter, N. P., Vasey, J. J., Starks, M. T., & Sinclair, K. O. (2005). Predicting the suicide attempts of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 35, 646-660.
18. D'Augelli, A. R., Hershberger, S. L., & Pilkington, N. W. (1998). Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths and their families: Disclosure of sexual orientation and its consequences. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 68, 361-371.
19. D'Augelli, A. R., Hershberger, S. L., & Pilkington, N. W. (2001). Suicidality patterns and sexual orientation-related factors among lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 31, 250-264.
20. Dorais, M., & Lajeunesse, S. L. (2004). Dead boys can't dance: Sexual orientation, masculinity and suicide (P. Tremblay, Trans.). Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.
21. European Commission. (2008, July). Discrimination in the European Union: Perceptions, experiences and attitudes. Special Eurobarometer 296. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/public-opinion/archives/ebs/ebs-296-en.pdf.
22. Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175-191.
23. Fox, R. C. (1995). Lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities over the lifespan: Psychological perspectives. In A. R. D'Augelli & C. P. Patterson (Eds.), Lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities over the lifespan: Psychological perspectives (pp. 48-86). New York: Oxford University Press.
24. Gratz, K. L. (2006). Risk factors for deliberate self-harm among female college students: The role and interaction of childhood maltreatment, emotional inexpressivity, and affect intensity/reactivity. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 76, 238-250.
25. Haas, A. P., Eliason, M., Mays, V. M., Mathy, R. M., Cochran, S. D., & D'Augelli, A. R.,. Clayton, P. J. (2011). Suicide and suicide risk in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations: Review and recommendation. Journal of Homosexuality, 58, 10-51.
26. Harris, E. C., & Barraclough, B. (1997). Suicide as an outcome for mental disorders. A meta-analysis. British Journal of Psychiatry, 170, 205-228.
27. Hatzenbuehler, M. (2009). How does sexual minority stigma "get under the skin"? A psychological mediation framework. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 707-730.
28. Hong, J. S., Espelage, D. L., & Krall, M. J. (2011). Understanding suicide among sexual minority youth in America: An ecological systems analysis. Journal of Adolescence, 34, 885-894.
29. Irish Departments of Public Health. (2001). Suicide in Ireland. A national study. Retrieved from http://www.nosp.ie/suicide-in-ireland.pdf.
30. Jeffreys, H. (1961). Theory of probability. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
31. Jiang, Y., Perry, D. K., & Hesser, J. E. (2010). Adolescent suicide and health risk behaviors: Rhode Island's 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 38, 551-555.
32. Kann, L., Olsen, E. O., McManus, T., Kinchen, S., Chyen, D., Harris, W. A.,. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2011). Sexual identity, sex of sexual contacts, and health-risk behaviors among students in grades 9-12 - Youth risk behavior surveillance, selected sites, United States, 2001-2009. MMWR, 60, 1-133. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss6007.pdf.
33. Kass, R. E., & Raftery, A. E. (1995). Bayes factors. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 90, 377-395.
34. King, M., Semlyen, J., Tai, S. S., Killaspy, H., Osborn, D., Popelyuk, D., & Nazareth, I. (2008). A systematic review of mental disorder, suicide, and deliberate self harm in lesbian, gay and bisexual people. BMC Psychiatry, 8, 70. doi: 10.1186/1471-244X-8-70.
35. Kisch, J., Leino, E. V., & Silverman, M. M. (2005). Aspects of suicidal behavior, depression, and treatment in college students: Results from the spring 2000 National College Health Assessment Survey. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 35, 3-13.
36. Kruschke, J. K. (2011). Bayesian assessment of the null values via parameter estimation and model comparison. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 299-312.
37. Lee, M. D., & Wagenmakers, E. J. (2010, August 23). A course in Bayesian graphical modeling for cognitive science. Retrieved from http://www.ejwagenmakers.com/BayesCourse/BayesBookWeb.pdf.
38. Lewis, N. M. (2009). Mental health in sexual minorities: Recent indicators, trends, and their relationships to place in North America and Europe. Health and Place, 15, 1029-1045.
39. Lombardi, G., Mondaini, N., Iazzetta, P., Macchiarella, A., & Del Popolo, G. (2008). Sexuality in patients with spinal cord injuries due to attempted suicide. Spinal Cord, 46, 53-57.
40. Lunn, D. J., Thomas, A., Best, N., & Spiegelhalter, D. (2000). WinBUGS - A Bayesian modelling framework: Concepts, structure, and extensibility. Statistics and Computing, 10, 325-337.
41. Lydersen, S., Fagerland, M. W., & Laake, P. (2009). Recommended tests for association in 2 × 2 tables. Statistics in Medicine, 28, 1159-1175.
42. Lynch, S. M. (2007). Introduction to applied Bayesian statistics and estimation for social scientists. Berlin: Springer.
43. Marshal, M. P., Dietz, L. J., Friedman, M. S., Stall, R., Smith, H. A., McGinley, J., Thoma, B. C.,. Brent, D. A. (2011). Suicidality and depression disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual youth: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Adolescent Health, 49, 115-123.
44. Martin, R. L., Cloninger, C. R., Guze, S. B., & Clayton, P. J. (1985). Mortality in a follow-up of 500 psychiatric outpatients. II. Cause-specific mortality. Archives of General Psychiatry, 42, 58-66.
45. Martin, A. D., & Hetrick, E. S. (1988). The stigmatization of the gay and lesbian adolescent. Journal of Homosexuality, 15, 163-183.
46. Mathy, R. M., Cochran, S. D., Olsen, J., & Mays, V. M. (2009). The association between relationship markers of sexual orientation and suicide: Denmark, 1990-2001. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 46, 111-117.
47. McCabe, S. E., Hughes, T. L., Bostwick, W., Morales, M., & Boyd, C. J. (2012). Measurement of sexual identity in surveys: Implications for substance abuse research. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 649-657.
48. McDaniel, J. S., Purcell, D., & D'Augelli, A. R. (2001). The relationship between sexual orientation and risk for suicide: Research findings and future directions for research and prevention. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 31, 84-105.
49. Meehan, P. J., Lamb, J. A., Saltzman, L. E., & O'Carroll, W. O. (1992). Attempted suicide among young adults: Progress toward a meaningful estimate of prevalence. American Journal of Psychiatry, 149, 41-49.
50. Meyer, I. H. (2003). Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations: Conceptual issues and research evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 674-697.
51. Meyer, I. H., & Wilson, P. A. (2009). Sampling lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 56, 23-31.
52. Miller, D. N., & Eckert, T. L. (2009). Youth suicidal behavior: An introduction and overview. School Psychology Review, 38, 153-167.
53. Mitterauer, B. (1981). The suicidal axis syndrome. A medico-biological study of the estimation of suicide-proneness. Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, 68(Suppl.), 1-28.
54. Motto, J. A., Heilbron, D. C., & Juster, R. P. (1985). Development of a clinical instrument to estimate suicide risk. American Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 680-686.
55. Muehrer, P. (1995). Suicide and sexual orientation: A critical summary of recent research and directions for future research. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 25, 72-81.
56. Murphy, H. E. (2007). Suicide risk among gay, lesbian and bisexual college youth. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Washington. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1773/7522.
57. Mustanski, B. S., Garofalo, R., & Emerson, E. M. (2010). Mental health disorders, psychological distress, and suicidality in a diverse sample of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youths. American Journal of Public Health, 100, 2426-2432.
58. Newcomb, M. E., & Mustanski, B. (2010). Internalized homophobia and internalizing mental health problems: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 1019-1029.
59. Newcomb, M. E., & Mustanski, B. (2011). Moderators of the relationship between internalized homophobia and risky sexual behavior in men who have sex with men: A meta-analysis. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40, 189-199.
60. O'Connor, R. C., Rasmussen, S., Miles, J., & Hawton, K. (2009). Self-harm in adolescents: Self-report survey in schools in Scotland. British Journal of Psychiatry, 194, 68-72.
61. Olshen, E., McVeigh, K. H., Wunsch-Hitzig, R. A., & Rickert, V. I. (2007). Dating violence, sexual assault, and suicide attempts among urban teenagers. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 161, 539-545.
62. Owens, D., Wood, C., Greenwood, D. C., Hughes, T., & Dennis, M. (2005). Mortality and suicide after non-fatal self-poisoning: 16-year outcome study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 187, 470-475.
63. Pachankis, P. E. (2007). The psychological implications of concealing a stigma: A cognitive-affective-behavioral model. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 328-345.
64. Plöderl, M., & Fartacek, R. (2005). Suicidality and associated risk factors among lesbian, gay, and bisexual compared to heterosexual Austrian adults. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 35, 661-670.
65. Plöderl, M., & Fartacek, R. (2009). Childhood gender nonconformity and childhood harassment as predictors of suicidality among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual Austrians. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 38, 400-410.
66. Plöderl, M., Kralovec, K., & Fartacek, R. (2010). The relation between sexual orientation and suicide attempts in Austria. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39, 1403-1414.
67. Plöderl, M., Kralovec, K., Yazdi, K., & Fartacek, R. (2011). A closer look at self-reported suicide attempts: False positives and false negatives. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 41, 1-5.
68. Plöderl, M., Sauer, J., & Fartacek, R. (2006). Suizidalität und psychische Gesundheit von homo- und bisexuellen Männern und Frauen. Eine metaanalytische Zusammenfassung internationaler Zufallsstichproben [Suicidality and mental health of homosexual and bisexual men and women. A meta-analysis of international probability samples]. Verhaltenstherapie und psychosoziale Praxis, 117, 4-10.
69. Qin, P., Agerbo, E., & Mortensen, P. B. (2003). Suicide risk in relation to socioeconomic, demographic, psychiatric, and familial factors: A national register-based study of all suicides in Denmark, 1981-1997. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160, 765-772.
70. R Development Core Team. (2010). R: A language and environment for statistical computing [Software]. Vienna, Austria. Available from http://www.r-project.org/.
71. Radkowski, M., & Siegel, L. J. (1997). The gay adolescent: Stressors, adaptions, and psychosocial interventions. Clinical Psychology Review, 17, 191-216.
72. Ramsay, R., & Tremblay, P. (2012a). Gay, lesbian, bisexual & transgender "attempted suicide" incidences/risks. Suicidality studies from 1970 to 2012. Retrieved from http://people.ucalgary.ca/~ramsay/attempted- suicide-gay-lesbian-all-studies.htm.
73. Ramsay, R., & Tremblay, P. (2012b). Homosexually oriented people are at greater risk for more serious suicidal behaviors. Retrieved from http://people.ucalgary.ca/~ramsay/gay-more-risk-suicide.htm.
74. Reis, B., & Saewyc, E. (1999, May). Eighty-three-thousand youth: Selected findings of eight population based studies as they pertain to anti-gay harassment and the safety and well-being of sexual minority students. The Safe Schools Coalition of Washington. Retrieved from http://www.safeschoolscoalition. org/83000youth.pdf.
75. Renaud, J., Berlim, M. T., Begolli, M., McGirr, A., & Turecki, G. (2010). Sexual orientation and gender identity in youth suicide victims: An exploratory study. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 55, 29-34.
76. Rich, C. L., Fowler, R. C., Young, D., & Blenkush, M. (1986). San Diego suicide study: Comparison of gay to straight males. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 16, 448-457.
77. Riggle, E. D., Rostosky, S. S., & Horne, S. G. (2010). Psychological distress, well-being, and legal recognition in same-sex couple relationships. Journal of Family Psychology, 24, 82-86.
78. Rothberg, J. M., Fagan, J., & Shaw, J. (1990). Suicide in United States Army personnel, 1985-1986. Military Medicine, 155, 452-456.
79. Russell, S. T. (2003). Sexual minority youth and suicide risk. American Behavioral Scientist, 46, 1241-1257.
80. Savin-Williams, R. C. (2001). Suicide attempts among sexual-minority youths: Population and measurement issues. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 69, 983-991.
81. Savin-Williams, R. C. (2008). Then and now: Recruitment, definition, diversity, and positive attributes of same-sex populations. Developmental Psychology, 44, 135-138.
82. Savin-Williams, R. C., & Ream, G. L. (2003). Suicide attempts among sexual-minority male youth. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 32, 509-522.
83. Sedlmeier, P., & Gigerenzer, G. (1989). Do studies of statistical power have an effect on the power of studies? Psychological Bulletin, 105, 309-316.
84. Shaffer, D., Fisher, P., Hicks, R. H., Parides, M., & Gould, M. (1995). Sexual orientation in adolescents who commit suicide. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 25, 64-71.
85. Silverman, M. M., Berman, A. L., Sanddal, N. D., O'Carroll, P. W., & Joiner, T. E. (2007). Rebuilding the tower of Babel: A revised nomenclature for the study of suicide and suicidal behaviors part 2: Suicide-related ideations, communications, and behaviors. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 37, 264-277.
86. Steele, L. S., Ross, L. E., Dobinson, C., Veldhuizen, S., & Tinmouth, J. M. (2009). Women's sexual orientation and health: Results from a Canadian population-based survey. Women and Health, 49, 353-367.
87. Subbiah, M., & Srinivasan, M. R. (2008). Classification of 2 × 2 sparse data sets with zero cells. Statistics and Probability Letters, 78, 3212-3215.
88. Sweeting, M. J., Sutton, A. J., & Lambert, P. C. (2004). What to add to nothing? Use and avoidance of continuity corrections in meta-analysis of sparse data. Statistics in Medicine, 23, 1351-1375.
89. Tian, L., Cai, T., Pfeffer, M. A., Piankov, N., Cremieux, P. Y., & Wei, L. J. (2009). Exact and efficient inference procedure for meta-analysis and its application to the analysis of independent 2 × 2 tables with all available data but without artificial continuity correction. Biostatistics, 10, 275-281.
90. Tremblay, P., Plöderl, M., & Ramsay, R. (2012). Adolescent gay/lesbian suicide risk. An expanded homosexuality factor in adolescent suicide. Retrieved from http://people.ucalgary.ca/~ramsay/adolescent-gay- lesbian-suicide-risk.htm.
91. Tremblay, P., & Ramsay, R. (2000, September). Orientations homosexuelles ou bisexuelles chez les jeunes présentant des problèmes suicidaires: recherche, problématique et propositions. Le Vis-à-Vie, 10, 5-8. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/ 20071222142530/www.aqps.info/docs/vav/v10/v10n2-02.html.
92. Villarroel, M. A., Turner, C. F., Eggleston, E., Al-Tayyib, A., Rogers, S. M., Roman, A. M.,. Gordek, H. (2006). Same-gender sex in the United States. Public Opinion Quarterly, 70, 166-196.
93. Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2007). A practical solution to the pervasive problems of p values. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 779-804.
94. Wagenmakers, E.-J., Wetzels, R., Borsboom, D., & van der Maas, H. L. J. (2011). Why psychologists must change the way they analyze their data: The case of psi. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 426-432.
95. Wasserman, D., & Wasserman, C. (Eds.). (2009). Oxford textbook of suicidology and suicide prevention: A global perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.
96. Weyrauch, K. F., Roy-Byrne, P., Katon, W., & Wilson, L. (2001). Stressful life events and impulsiveness in failed suicide. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 31, 311-319.
97. Whitehead, N. E. (2009, April 18). Homosexuality and mental health problems. Retrieved from http://narth.com/2009/04/homosexuality-and-mental- health-problems/.
98. Whitlock, J., & Knox, K. L. (2007). The relationship between self-injurious behavior and suicide in a young adult population. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 161, 634-640.
99. Wichstrøm, L. (2009). Predictors of non-suicidal self-injury versus attempted suicide: Similar or different? Archives of Suicide Research, 13, 105-122.
100. Wichstrøm, L., & Hegna, K. (2003). Sexual orientation and suicide attempt: A longitudinal study of the general Norwegian population. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 112, 144-151.
101. Wortzel, H. S., Gutierrez, P. M., Homaifar, B. Y., Breshears, R. E., & Harwood, J. E. (2010). Surrogate endpoints in suicide research. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 40, 500-505.