The associations between suicidality and mental health factors and pain interference in veterans being referred to primary care mental health integration

Abstract

In veterans being referred to a primary care-mental health integration (PCMHI) program, the Behavioral Health Laboratory, we sought to identify correlates of suicidal ideation severity and suicide attempts using the ideation-to-action framework among pain interference, psychiatric disorders, and treatment factors. Veterans (n = 17,176) referred to the Behavioral Health Laboratory received a structured assessment that included past-year suicidal thoughts and behaviors, psychiatric symptoms, substance use, psychotropic medication use, and mental health treatment utilization. Nearly 50% of participants reported at least passive suicidal ideation. While psychiatric symptoms differentiated passive ideators, active ideators, and suicide attempters from non-suicide ideators, there were no significant differences among active ideators and attempters. Additionally, attempters differed from passive ideators in terms of drug use, mental health treatment, psychotropic medication use, mania, and psychosis. Pain interference was significantly associated with suicidal ideation severity in bivariate analyses, but not for the adjusted analyses. PCMHI is a setting seeing a high rate of suicidal ideation and may serve as a critical setting to implement suicide prevention efforts.

Keywords: Depression; Substance use; Suicidal ideation; Suicide attempts.