Suicide attempts among activated soldiers in the U.S. Army reserve components

BMC Psychiatry

Table 3 Multivariable associations of active time in service, deployment status, and time since most recent mental health diagnosis with suicide attempt among activated enlisted soldiers in the U.S. Army reserve components^a,b

	OR	(95% CI)	Cases (N)	Total (N)^c	Rate^d	Pop %^e	SRE^f
I. Active Time in Service^b,^g
1–2 years	1.9*	(1.4–2.5)	651	4,043,051	193	34.3	160
3–4 years	1.1	(0.9–1.5)	111	1,441,711	92	12.2	96
5–10 years	1.0	–	126	1,873,726	81	15.9	84
> 10 years	0.7*	(0.5–1.0)	168	4,421,568	46	37.5	55
χ²₃	32.0*
II. Deployment Status^b
Never deployed	1.2	(1.0–1.4)	634	5,864,234	130	49.8	108
Currently deployed	1.0	–	230	3,393,630	81	28.8	93
Previously deployed	1.3*	(1.1–1.6)	192	2,522,192	91	21.4	129
χ²₂	7.4*
III. Time Since Most Recent Mental Health Diagnosis^b
No Diagnosis	1.0	–	580	10,198,180	68	86.6	65
1 Month	28.4*	(24.7–32.7)	330	254,530	1556	2.2	1863
2–3 Months	6.0*	(4.6–7.8)	61	217,661	336	1.8	399
4–12 Months	2.8*	(2.1–3.7)	52	438,652	142	3.7	184
≥ 13 Months	1.5*	(1.0–2.1)	33	671,033	59	5.7	101
χ²₄	2215.1*

^aThe sample of activated Reserve Component enlisted soldiers (n = 1056 cases, 58,895 control person-months) is a subset of the total Reserve Component sample (n = 70,970 person-months) from the Army STARRS Historical Administrative Data Study (HADS). All control person-months were assigned a weight of 200 to adjust for under-sampling
^bTime in service, deployment status, and mental health diagnosis were each examined in a separate model that controlled for basic socio-demographic variables (gender, age at entry into the Army, current age, race, education, marital status). All analyses also included a dummy predictor variable for calendar month and year to control for secular trends
^cTotal includes both cases (i.e., suicide attempters) and weighted control person-months
^dRate per 100,000 person-years, calculated based on n₁/n₂, where n₁ is the unique number of soldiers within each category and n₂ is the annual number of person-years, not person-months, in the population
^ePop % Percentage of the activated Reserve Component enlisted population
^fSRE Standardized risk estimate (suicide attempters per 100,000 person-years) was calculated assuming other predictors were at their sample-wide means
^gBased on the number of months a soldier served on active duty (e.g., 1–2 years = 0–24 months of active service; 3–4 years = 25–48 months of active service, etc.)
*p < 0.05

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