Suicidality and Mental Health among Emergency Responders: Analyzing First Responder Self-Administered Mental Health Questionnaires for Rates of Pathology and Suicidal Ideation

OBJECTIVE: We first test whether police officers have different base-rates of suicidality than other first responders; second, we use both theory and correlations with less stigmatized admissions of psychopathology (i.e., endorsements of hopelessness, anhedonia, and other depressive symptoms) to make inferences about the accuracy of self-reported suicidality among police officers. METHODS: Accessing a heretofore untapped database of 2,281 first responders to the September 11 th terrorist attack, we report statistics on suicidal ideation, including its frequency and correlations to mental health symptoms. RESULTS: Contra prior findings, this study did not find disparities among first responders, and instead found police officers exhibiting similar rates of psychopathology and suicidality. CONCLUSIONS: This study's significance extends from its interpretation of suicidal ideation within the larger ecosystem of psychological functioning, an approach applicable to patients motivated to deny suicidal ideation.