Men's Recent Stressors and Reported Suicidality

Men’s suicide is a major public health crisis, with men dying from suicide at a rate four times higher than women in the US. There has been much research into the factors that might put men more at risk for completing or contemplating suicide. Among these risk factors, alcohol/drug misuse was one of the strongest identified. There is also an expanding literature on the outside pressures of unemployment, job insecurity, and financial stress or dissatisfaction as risk factors for men’s suicide. Research has found that other salient risk factors include separation from a spouse or partner, being single, and depression. Despite this broad range of factors, a majority of the research focuses on men who experience depression, with depression itself being a salient risk factor. Further research is needed to fill this gap. The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between various recent life stressors and suicidality among men. We hypothesize that among men who have experienced suicidality in the last 12 months, stressors such as financial strain, stress and conflict in romantic relationships, and substance abuse issues would have more prevalence than among men with no reported suicidality in the last 12 months.