People who committed suicide by firearm were less likely to seek mental health treatment

People who committed suicide by firearm were less likely to seek treatment and have previous suicide attempts, yet more likely to reveal their thoughts and plans, compared with others who took their own life.

“Those who die by firearm are thought to represent a unique subset of decedents who differ from other decedents who die by suicide on a number of variables,” Allison E. Bond, MA, of the department of psychology at Rutgers University, and colleagues wrote in JAMA Network Open

“Research has shown that those who identify with gun culture often also identify with traditional masculine norms, which may negatively affect help-seeking.”

Bond and colleagues sought to assess the differences in treatment seeking and suicidality between those who committed suicide by firearm and those who did so through different means.

The cross-sectional study utilized information collected from 234,652 suicide decedents (77.8% male; 87.8% white; mean age 46.3 years) from 2003 to 2018, whose states of residence reported to the National Violent Death Reporting System.

The authors assessed participants’ treatment for mental health and substance use at time of death, record of prior mental health and substance use treatment, history of suicidal ideation or plans, history of suicide attempts, and disclosure of suicidal ideation or plans.

Bond and colleagues found that compared with those who committed suicide by firearm (49.9%; n = 117,126) were more likely to disclose their plans of suicide to someone else within the prior month, compared with those who committed suicide through other means (odds ratio, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.13-1.18).

Compared with people who committed suicide through poisoning, those who committed suicide by firearm were more likely to have a history of having suicidal thoughts or making plans (OR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.15-1.23).

Data additionally showed those who used a firearm to take their own lives were more likely to reveal their suicidal thoughts or plans to someone else within a month before death, compared to those who died by hanging (OR, 1.14; 95% CI, 1.11-1.17).

“The findings suggest that those likely to die by firearm suicide are unlikely to engage with mental health services, yet such services are often tasked with reducing access to lethal means,” Bond and colleagues wrote. “This study emphasizes the importance of community-based interventions in firearm suicide prevention.”