A new study by a Veterans Administration psychologist in Ann Arbor is helping refine suicide risk assessments for U.S. military veterans.
Kevin Saulnier is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan. He’s also a staff psychologist at the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in Ann Arbor.
He combed through nearly 270,000 Comprehensive Suicide Risk Evaluations conducted by the VA over a one-year period, between 2019 and 2020.
Saulnier found veterans most likely to commit suicide tended to be individuals with a history of mental health inpatient stays, had access to firearms, were actively experiencing suicidal thoughts and planning suicide.
“For clinicians, who routinely do these evaluations, this study highlights constructs that might be most relevant to informing their assessments of overall risk,” said Saulnier.
Data show military veterans have a higher suicide rate than the general U.S. population.
The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, you can call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
