Adult friendship and suicidality: A scoping review

Despite the role friendship can play in the physical and mental health of adults, little is known about its relationship with suicidality. To address this gap, we conducted a scoping review on adult friendship and suicidality in Medline, PsycInfo, and the Cochrane Library from inception to April 9, 2024. We used a combination of keywords and MeSH terms to find studies reporting on the themes of suicidality and adult friendship. We summarized key findings on the association between friendship and suicidality. We identified only 43 studies on adult friendship and suicidality. The study designs, goals, measurements, and populations were highly heterogeneous, and friendship was not measured consistently. Nevertheless, most studies (60.5% or 26 out of 43 unique studies) found friendship was protective against suicidality. This review highlights the inconsistent measurement of friendship and lack of conceptualization of friendship. Yet, friendship appears to be protective against suicidality. Further study is needed to understand the relationship between friendship and suicide.