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Cannabis Use Disorder and Post-Deployment Suicide Attempts in Iraq/Afghanistan-Era Veterans.

Kelsie AdkissonKatherine C CunninghamEric A DedertMichelle F DennisPatrick S CalhounEric B ElbogenJean C BeckhamNathan A Kimbrel
Published in: Archives of suicide research : official journal of the International Academy for Suicide Research (2018)
The objective of the present study was to use retrospective data to test the hypothesis that cannabis dependence would be associated with an increased rate of post-deployment suicide attempts. Participants included 319 veterans who had deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan. Study procedures involved completion of a structured clinical interview and a battery of self-report questionnaires. As expected, lifetime cannabis dependence was significantly associated with post-deployment suicide attempts, AOR = 7.963, p = .014, even after controlling for the effects of pre-deployment suicide attempts, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, pain, non-cannabis substance use disorder, and gender. Although preliminary, our findings provide the first evidence to date that heavy cannabis use may be a unique risk factor for post-deployment suicide attempts among veterans.
Keyphrases
  • posttraumatic stress disorder
  • machine learning
  • depressive symptoms
  • pain management
  • physical activity
  • spinal cord injury
  • neuropathic pain
  • big data
  • deep learning